Baked plum Kuchen Now’s the time to bake with Italian prune plums, those succulent dark purple fruits that are flooding farmers markets and supermarkets right now. Some even call them the zucchini of fruit! But let’s not go there. These prunes are great to eat out of hand as well as to bake into galettes, cakes, and kuchens. The New York Times published its most requested recipe ever—Plum Torte—in the 1980s, and though that cake is absolutely wonderful, the recipe below, Plum Kuchen, rivals it.
What is Kuchen?
“Kuchen” is German for cake, but you make the cake layer in a Plum Kuchen in a special way. Instead of creaming butter and sugar and beating in eggs and flavoring and stirring in flour and leavening, you cut cold butter into the dry ingredients just as though you were making a pie crust. But then you stir in egg, vanilla, and milk and it becomes a thick, wet dough. How is that unpromising-looking mass ever going to become a cake? Just have faith and plop small spoonfuls of it all over the bottom of a buttered pan, then slowly swirl them together with the aid of a spoon to make a very thin layer. When topped with the Italian prunes, some butter, cinnamon sugar and baked, you will have created a delicately-textured cake about a half-inch high dappled with purple prune plums and their crimson juices. Gorgeous! Absolutely heavenly in appearance and in taste, a slice of this kuchen will make you feel, by some magic, that you’ve been transported to one of the finest European cafés. Coffee, tea, or a cappuccino, is most welcome. And leftovers are great for breakfast. Happy baking and eating!