German Plum Cake – Zwetschgenkuchen Recipe

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German plum cake, Zwetschgenkuchen, or Pflaumenkuchen with streusel is a classic recipe baked in any German kitchen or bakery.

This traditional German plum cake recipe is one of my favorite autumn cakes, one of the most popular cakes in Germany. Nothing speaks more of autumn, crisp air, and delicious baked goods than this amazing Zwetschgenkuchen, a typical streusel cake, or Pflaumenkuchen mit Streusel.

Zwetschgenkuchen

There are different versions of plum cake, and I love them all, but this German cake is the best if you ask me. Another one I love is this Plum Bread. Or these super Easy Puff Pastry Plum Tarts.

Any German person who bakes has probably baked this cake before. Anyone who doesn’t bake probably buys it at the bakery every autumn. It is the quintessence of a late summer or autumn cake, of the plum season: the yeasty dough, the sweet and sour plums, the crispy, sweet, buttery streusel. I love it so!

You can then have it fresh from the oven, still a bit warm, fluffy underneath, moist and rather sour in the middle, crisp and sweet on top. It can hardly get any better!

And if you would like to try more traditional German recipes, have a look at this Beef Soup, Königsberger Klopse, Savoy Cabbage Rolls, or Schweinehaxe.

What do you need?

• For the dough: all-purpose flour, yeast, sugar, milk, egg, butter.
• For the streusel: flour, sugar, unsalted butter, cinnamon.
• For the topping: Italian prune plums (Zwetschgen).

What are Zwetschgen?

• A smaller type of plum that grows just about every corner around here, many of our neighbors have a plum tree in their garden, so I am never short on supply. Check this Plum Butter (Pflaumenmuss) or the Stewed Plums; they are a great way to deal with a glut of fresh Italian plums.
• Also known as Italian plums, empress plums, or European plums, they are sweet-sour, almost black plums.
• You can pick or buy them from the end of August until October.
• I prefer to use this sort when making this delicious cake because they are less juicy than regular large ones, so the dough will not get soaked.
• They are also much easier to cut from the stone, giving you these beautiful butterflied plums to cover the cake with.
• They are less sweet than regular plums, a sweet-sour taste, which develops even more during the baking process.

How to make German plum cake?

I have been working with yeast a lot during the last 15 years. I know that many people are intimidated by yeast, but you really should give it a try. Yeast is easy to work with, and anyone can manage the few minutes of kneading. If you have a stand mixer, even better, the machine can do the kneading for you as well as the streusel topping.

What kind of yeast to use?

• The best kind is fresh. However, I know that fresh yeast is not available everywhere, so I have used active or instant dry yeast a lot since I’ve started blogging. It works.
• One significant difference is that dough made with dry yeast needs a longer rising time than dough made with fresh.
• When making this Zwetschgenkuchen with fresh yeast, the dough needs about 30-40 minutes (depending on how warm my kitchen is), while dough made with active dry yeast needs about an hour, sometimes an hour 10 minutes.
• Keep an eye on the dough and continue with the recipe as soon as the dough has doubled in size.
• If you leave the dough for too little time and it doesn’t have enough time to rise, the end product will be flat and less fluffy. But if you leave the dough to rise too much is not good either. The dough will lose its power and sink during the baking process. So, leave it until about doubled in size.
• You will need ½ cube fresh yeast for making this plum streusel cake. ½ cube is 21 g/ 0.7 oz in Germany or 1 sachet (7 g/0.25 oz) of active dry yeast.

How to make the yeast dough:

• Combine: Place the flour, sugar, and salt into a large mixing bowl. Mix well with a spoon. Pour the milk into a small pot and heat it very gently. It should only have about 36 degrees Celsius/ 96 degrees Fahrenheit, so body temperature. If it is hotter, it will destroy the yeast, and the dough will not rise.
• Add butter and yeast to the milk and stir until the butter has melted. Pour the milk mixture and the lightly beaten egg into the flour mixture.
• Knead the dough with the hand-held mixer fitted with dough hooks or a stand mixer with a dough hook. Knead until the dough starts coming off the sides of the bowl. Turn the dough onto the working surface and knead the dough with your hands for a couple of minutes.
• Let rise: Form a ball, place it back into the large bowl. Cover the bowl with a clean cloth or plastic wrap and let the dough rise in a warm place. The dough will need about an hour until about doubled in size.

How to make streusel?

• Food processor: You can mix the ingredients in the food processor until the mixture turns to crumbs or rub the cold butter into the flour mixture until you obtain the crumbs.
• By hand: Rub butter and flour with your fingertips, the palms of your hands are too warm for this. Hold the fingers under cold water, dry them well, and then rub the butter into the flour.
• Refrigerate: Place the bowl with the streusel in the refrigerator until ready to use.
• Alternatively, you can make the crumbles with melted butter, brown sugar and add a little bit of lemon peel, vanilla sugar, or vanilla extract. But I prefer the classic version of this delicious German plum cake.

How to pit the plums?

• You will need more or less 1 kg/ 2.2 lbs plums; just keep going until you top all of your dough.
• While the dough is rising, stone fruit.
• Don’t cut the plums all the way through; they should remain attached on one side. Instead, cut the fresh prune plums on the side along the seam that runs from top to bottom. Then, open the fruit, remove the stone with your fingers, but don’t cut into halves; leave the pieces attached on one side (See picture above).

Assemble

• Preheat the oven to 200 degrees Celsius/ 400 degrees Fahrenheit.
• Line a large baking sheet with parchment paper. My tray is 30×40 cm/ 12×16 inches.
• Roll the yeasted dough with a rolling pin to match the size of the tray. Carefully place the dough on the tray and stretch and press with your fingers until everything fits.
• Arrange the prepared fruit on top.
• Sprinkle the streusel on top.
• Bake in the preheated oven for 30-35 minutes or until the streusel is golden brown.
• Let stand for about 20 minutes before slicing.
• Here is your delicious coffee cake, perfect for Kaffee or Kuchen.

Can I halve the recipe?

This recipe makes a large batch. However, you can easily halve the ingredients and bake the cake in a smaller tin or a springform with a diameter of about 26 cm/ 10 inches.

Can I use other fruit?

• Yes! You can bake this recipe with lots of other fruit. I often make it with nectarines, fresh or canned peaches, or apricots.
• Cherries (either fresh or canned) are perfect as well. Try it with apples, pears, or a mixture of the two.
• And if you happen to have some leftover fruit, chop and mix everything and use that instead. And check this delicious Red Currant Cake as well, a twist on the classic German fruit yeast cake.

How to serve?

• Yeast cakes are always best served on the day you bake them. However, leftovers are still delicious the next day, but not as fluffy anymore.
• You can serve it as it is or sprinkle it with icing sugar.
• Traditionally, you would serve it at room temperature with homemade whipped cream.
• Lukewarm is delicious as well. In this case, serving it with a scoop of vanilla ice cream on top is just heaven.

How to store?

• Zwetschgenkuchen keeps well for 3-4 days.
• Room temperature: keep for one day covered with a clean towel.
• Refrigerate it after the second day in airtight containers.
• Freeze: Once completely cool, cut it into squares. Place in airtight containers or wrap well in foil and refrigerate for 3-4 months.
• Defrost on the counter. Once at room temperature, you can serve it directly or refresh it in the oven. Preheat the oven to 175 degrees Celsius/ 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Place the pieces on a lined baking tray and reheat for 5 to 10 minutes.

More traditional German cakes:

• Black Forest Cake
• Blitzkuchen
• Apple Crumble Cake
• Rhubarb Meringue Pie
• Mandarin Orange Cake