A Tart by any Other Name....Would Taste as Sweet

Jan Norris, a 26-year veteran of the Palm Beach Post  and one of the most knowledgeable and entertaining food editors I worked with during my years as Union-Tribune food editor, recently asked me about my favorite summer food memories. I wrote this 'ode to a plum tart' for her. It's included, along with the recollections of many other food writers, in a series about summery foods on her blog. 

 Pflaumenkuchen. I was flummoxed by the very sound of the word. Yet the syllables tripped off the tongue of the woman patting out the pie crust as easily as shiny little pebbles slipping downstream.

I had been dating a charming “Virginia Gentleman,” called “T” by his friends, for less than a month when he invited me to visit his parents’ home one late-August weekend. Little did I know that I’d marry him 11 months later. Little did I know that I’d get a fabulous Pflaumenkuchen recipe in the deal.

Pflaumen (pronounced flow (as in flower)- men) is the German word for prune plums. (Kuchen is cake, though this creation is more of a tart.) Also known as Italian Prune Plums, these precious nuggets are available for a very brief period --  two or three weeks max each summer, in late August and early September. They’re the size of a baby’s fist, slightly egg-shaped, with blue-purple skin, freestone pits (which separate easily) and yellowish flesh. Though they’re tasty eaten out of hand, prune plums are best cooked or baked, when they become soft, jammy and fragrant, with nicely caramelized edges.

But,  back to Carola Shiftan, who was born in a tiny village in East Germany and arrived in the United States towards the end of WWII, a few years before her son Thomas was born.  She was an elegant woman with a warm, welcoming personality and an exotic (to me) accent.  She liked to cook and bake, and had an impressive cookbook collection.

As a 20-year-old born-and-bred Bostonian, I knew little about European cuisines and even less about the guttural German language. But I watched and listened, fascinated, as she mixed a few ingredients in a bowl, lined a pie plate with the dough, and laid little purple plum slices neatly and tightly, side by side,  like a Rockettes chorus line.

When she died, just four months after our July 1969 wedding, I was given her well-worn  “Mastering the Art of French Cooking, Volumes I and II.”  They were my introduction to the wonderful world of Julia.

But more importantly, on a faded piece of yellow legal paper folded up inside one of those books, I got the recipe for Pflaumenkuchen.

During the 40 years since then, my husband and I have awaited the end of August like little kids await Santa. I try to make the simple little tart several times during the “season,” and I just about cry the day I visit the market and find that they’re gone.

The Mürbeteig (loosely translated as “sweet dough”) is what the French would call pate brisee, but with a lot more sugar and butter. In fact, there’s so much butter involved that I have to use the little silver pie weights when I blind bake the shell.

After that, all that’s left to do is slice the plums, arrange them in concentric circles, sprinkle them with a bit of sugar and breadcrumbs (Progresso Plain is fine) and dot with a few more bits of butter.

Pflaumenkuchen is the epitome of summer food, the very essence of  “eating seasonally.” And in our house, it brings a dearly-missed loved one back to the table every time we make it.

Here’s my mother-in-law’s recipe.  I’m pretty casual about amounts of ingredients. Experiment and use what works best for you.

PFLAUMENKUCHEN

1 cup flour
1/3 cup sugar plus 2 teaspoons
Pinch salt
1 stick butter, cold, cut into small pieces
1 egg yolk
2-3 tablespoons ice water, as needed
About 16 Italian prune plums
2 teaspoons plain breadcrumbs

Place flour, sugar, salt and butter pieces into a food processor, reserving 4 or 5 little pieces of butter for later. Process in short bursts until mixture starts to have the texture of oatmeal. Add egg yolk and continue to process in short bursts until dough starts to come together in a ball. Add ice water, as necessary, to facilitate this.

Remove from food processor. Form gently into a ball, Dust with flour. Wrap in waxed paper or plastic wrap and refrigerate for an hour or so.

Roll out dough when it’s firm, patting it into a 10-inch fluted tart pan with removable bottom. Blind bake the pastry shell, filling with pie weights.

In the meantime, wash, pit and cut each Italian prune plum into 6 or 8 pieces. Arrange them in pie tart in concentric circles. (If you run out, you can make a row of sliced peach, nectarine or another type of plum.) Sprinkle with breadcrumbs and extra sugar. Dot with leftover butter bits. Bake in 350-degree oven for about 15 minutes, until plums are soft and jammy.

Comments

[Sylvia Heyn-Smith]

1-21-2010
Dear Ms. Clancy - I discovered you and your
recipe from the site below:

http://www.whats4eats.com/desserts/pflaumenkuchen-recipe

I read the blog from September 9, 2009 and thought I would add a little memory to yours about Pflaumenkuchen.

My father Hans Heyn was born in Essen Germany. He came here as an adult, after WWII like your mother-in-law.

He told me about being a little boy walking into a home/bakery and watching the big apron-ed woman bring the Plaumenkuchen right out of her oven to the counter and serving it. He said that she would use a rectangular cookie sheet to press the dough onto, that the plums were halved, pitted, and then the halves were snipped
half way so they lay flatter and look like a pair of wings, then the 2 halves could be staggered/interlocked to cover the surface more thoroughly (I think my dad really liked the 'jammy' plum taste and wanted it in every bite!). He also mentioned,(smacking his lips),
that the Pflaumenkuchen was dusted with powdered sugarin front of them. Dad said it went all at once - she'd go make more, and the process would continue all day. Then he smiles and says, "Every kid ate theirs with their hands and licked every finger clean! Dad emphasized that it truly was so much more delicious than the chocolate chip cookies that we Americans eat.
As a teenager, my father would make us plum pancakes - I have to say they were to die for!
The hints he would tell me about making them were -
- use an egg per person
- put the baking powder in the batter very
carefully right before you use the batter
- when you first pour the batter on the griddle,
put the plum quarters on each pancake and cover each plum with a tiny bit of batter. That way when you flipped the pancake and it cooked on the other side the carmelized plum wouldn't burn.

I hope my story makes you smile.

-Sylvia Heyn-Smith
Beaverton, Oregon

[Maureen Clancy]

Re: [Matters of Taste] Sylvia Heyn-Smith submitted a comment to A Tart by any Other Name....Would Taste as Sweet

Wow....this made me smile AND made me very hungry! Thanks so much for the lovely story about your father and for the tips on making plum cake and pancakes when September rolls around again. Im off to Vienna and the Sud Tirol again for the month of June, so hopefully Ill have other delicious stories to share. Maureen