Italian Plum Streusel Cake – German Plum Cake

The Italian Plum Streusel Cake is a classic German cake and very popular throughout Germany. For this recipe you would use Italian or Damson plums, we call them in German Zwetschgen.
Streusel (or Crumble) Cakes in general can be bought in every bakery. Instead of plums you can use apricots or sour cherries. The dough of this recipe is made with yeast. You can use dry or fresh yeast if possible to find. Dry yeast is very common in the USA.

Ingredients Italian Plum Streusel Cake

Make Yeast Dough
125 ml milk
20 g yeast fresh or dry yeast for 300 g flour
300 g wheat flour
50 g sugar
2 egg yolk
1 dash salt
the seeds of 1 vanilla bean
1 tsp grated lemon peel (zest)
50 g soft butter
butter and flour to make and roll the dough
2kg Italian plums (no pits), 40 g sugar, 1/2 tsp cinnamon

Make the Streusel (Crumble)
125 g flour, 100 g superfine sugar (Castor sugar), 100 g melted butter, 1 pinch salt, seeds of 1/2 vanilla bean or vanilla extract, 75 g almonds (sliced or chopped)

Baking Instructions Italian Plum Streusel Cake

– Warm up the milk a bit and crumble in the yeast.
– Put flour in a bowl, add the yeast-milk, mix it with the egg yolk, sugar,  salt, lemon peel and vanilla bean seeds.
– Mix briefly, knead, add the soft butter.
– Knead until you get a smooth dough (best is to use hands for kneading).
– Cover with a clean kitchen cloth, and let rise at a warm place for 30 minutes.

– With a baking brush spread the melted butter evenly on a deep baking tray (must be 2 inches high), and evenly dust flour over the tray. You also can add a layer of parchment paper.
– On a smooth surface, sprinkled with flour at all times, roll the dough until you get a thin layer.
– Grease a high side baking sheet with melted butter and sprinkle with flour or layer it with parchment paper.
– Place dough on the baking sheet. Let rise again for 15 min.

– While the dough is rising prepare the plums: wash, dry with paper, cut in halves and remove pits. With a sharp knife cut every plum vertically but don’t cut through completely.
– Mix sugar with cinnamon.
– Place plums on the dough closely together, sprinkle with the sugar-cinnamon mix.

Make the Streusel
– Mix all Streusel ingredients except the almonds.
– With the hands make crumbles,  add the almonds and mix.
– Spread the Streusel evenly over the plums.
– Pre-heat oven to 350 F.
– Let cake rise for another 30 minutes.
– Bake for 30-40 minutes until the dough shows a golden color.

– When cake has cooled off on a cooling rack cut it into small squared pieces.

Tastes the best with some whipped cream!