Austrian Plum Cake Food

AUSTRIAN PLUM CAKE

Steps:

• Preheat oven to 325 degrees F. Set your baking rack on the middle shelf in the oven. Prepare a springform pan for your cake by lightly spraying it with an oil spray and then dusting the pan with flour (tapping off the excess).
• Combine the dry ingredients (flour, 1/2 C. sugar, baking powder, salt) in the bowl of a stand mixer and mix briefly. Keep your mixer running and add the butter one piece at a time. Continue to mix the ingredients until the flour takes on the consistency of moist sand. This will take 3-4 minutes. Add the egg and egg yolk to the flour. Add the vanilla. Beat this mixture at medium-high speed until it is pale and fluffy. This will take about 1 minute. You can scrape down the sides of the bowl as you are doing this to be sure that you are incorporating all the ingredients.
• Spread the batter across the bottom of your prepared springform pan using an offset spatula. Then, arrange the sliced plums in concentric circles across the top of the batter. The cut sides of the plums should face up. Sprinkle the remaining 2 T. sugar on top of the cake and put the cake into the oven to bake. Bake until the cake is golden brown and a skewer inserted in the center of the cake comes out clean. The original recipe called for baking the cake about 1 to 1 1/4 hours but my cake was perfectly done after one hour. Remove the baked cake from the oven and let it cool on a wire rack for about 30 minutes, after which you can remove the sides of the springform pan.
• Dust with powdered sugar and serve warm.

PFLAUMENKUCHEN (GERMAN PLUM CAKE)

Steps:

• Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.
• Quarter each plum so that all four quarters remain clinging together by their skin, forming a row.
• In a bowl, mix the flour, sugar, baking powder, salt, and butter together by cutting the butter in with a fork.
• In a measuring cup, combine the beaten egg and almond extract, then add enough milk to make 3/8 of a cup (aka 3 oz) total. (It may seem strange that there isn't an exact amount of milk to add, but I promise this method works. You'll likely use under 2 oz of milk, considering that a large egg is usually around 1.5 oz or so.).
• Add this to the dry ingredients and mix them together with your hands, forming a dough.
• If the dough is too sticky, add a touch more flour.
• Spread the dough thinly over a 13x9 inch jelly roll pan and cover it with overlapping rows of plums. (It may seem like the dough will never stretch to fit the entire pan, but be patient! Use the heel of your hand to gently spread the dough out evenly to each corner of the pan, the crust is supposed to be on the thinner side anyway.).
• Bake the tart for 1 hour and let it cool slightly before sprinkling with sugar for extra sweetness (or skip the sugar if you like it sweet-tart like I do).
• The plums will change color from green to a deep magenta as they bake, and will ooze lots of sticky purple juice that stains the crust beneath. Be careful not to overbake, this crust should be on the softer side.