Kaffeetafel cake (coffee table and reception cake)
Zwetschgendatschi — Franconian Plum Sheet Cake
FestiveReconstruction🍯 🍋moyen2 h (including 1 h 20 min resting)
A large sheet of soft yeast dough, covered with quetsche plums arranged in tight scales, sprinkled with cinnamon sugar. The fruits release a slightly tart purple juice that contrasts with the sweetness of the crumb.
Kaffeetafel cake (coffee table and reception cake)
A large sheet of soft yeast dough, covered with quetsche plums arranged in tight scales, sprinkled with cinnamon sugar. The fruits release a slightly tart purple juice that contrasts with the sweetness of the crumb.
When my young people came to discuss ideals and rings, I did not let them leave with empty stomachs—even if, I admit, it was often a neighbor who had baked the cake! You arrange the plums tightly on the dough, like aligning the terms of a beautiful proof, and the oven does the rest. The purple juice stains your fingers, you laugh, you start a calculation again on the back of a napkin. That is how, at my house, mathematics always tasted of plums.
Ingredients
- •Flour — enough for a large sheet (yeast dough)
- •Sourdough or fresh yeast — a piece (leavening)
- •Warm milk — a bowl (dough liquid)
- •Butter — a knob (softness)
- •Egg — one (binder)
- •Quetsche plums (Hauszwetschgen) — a large basket (topping)
- •Sugar and cinnamon — to sprinkle (finish)
How it was made : The Hauszwetschge, a small blue plum with firm flesh, ripens in late summer throughout Franconia. Its low water content allows baking without soaking the dough: that is why it is queen of family sheet cakes, baked in quantity in the village oven.