Plum Cake
 

By Charlene Taub

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I still recall summer nights when I, my sisters and brother, mom and dad, my grandfather and grandmother, Luitgart van den Valentyn, would gather around the picnic table on the old stone porch in back of our family home in Long Island. The ancient pine trees provided a sweetly scented canopy beneath the stars and lightening bugs sparked the darkness of those hot evenings.

We'd listen to my grandfather tell stories about the old county in his booming voice and heavy Albanian-Italian accent. We all laughed as we helped prepare fruit for canning or for use in desserts.

Being a grandchild of four immigrants meant that family gatherings were occasions of mixed ancestries coming together. On my father's side were the Sicilians, who settled in Queens, New York in the 1920s. My mother's parents came from Germany soon afterward and settled in the Bronx.

Earlier in the day, long tables had been set up end to end to accommodate the large group with smaller tables set up off to the sides for the kids. Eating was the main event. Those meals were genuine feasts; there were always several healthy courses. It always started out with a generous helping of pasta, meatballs, and salad. That was followed by chicken, turkey or lamb and lots of vegetable side dishes and Italian bread.

We also had delicious meals at home. I still remember my imposing-looking German grandfather sitting back in his easy chair with his wire-rimmed glasses and bulbed nose smoking a cigarette and sipping beer from his stein shouting, "You get in zee kitchen and help your grandma!" The thought of disobeying him never entered my mind.

In the kitchen I would help wash and dry pots and dishes, set the table, and absorb the mysterious details of cooking and putting dinner on the table. Most often those meals consisted of German fare such as goulash and egg noodles and green beans; marinated veal and red cabbage; delicious spaetzle or best of all, dumfknodel--white, puffy dumplings that were fried in a pan giving the bottoms a brown toasty crust to slather butter on before eating. Yum!

When we were children my German Grandma always had a stash of sweets we could depend on for a treat. My mother did not always approve of these sugary snacks and I recall angry clashes between them when Mom found out. When she stealthily gave us a snack, she'd always warn: "Don't tell your mother!"

I still smile when thinking of the story about how my father and mother met. My parents met at a Manhattan high school where my father, a debonair man with dark curly hair, played the piano for class assemblies. He spotted my blonde, pretty then-student mother in the auditorium and called out to her: "What's going on, Toots?" The rest, as they say, is history.

To this day whenever I see a Nestle miniature chocolate bar, a peppermint or butterscotch candy, a chocolate-covered graham crackers, or a plate of pheffernusse (small, round, spicy German cookies rolled in powdered sugar, which Grandma also made) I think of her. I was the eldest grandchild on my mother’s side, and I always felt there was a special bond between my grandmother and me.

She lived to nearly 97 years of age, and, near the end of her long life--when she began confusing people and places--I was secretly proud that she always knew and remembered me.

Afterward the large extended family meals on Long Island there was plenty of pie, cake,
cookies, fruit and nuts for dessert. At those meals Luitgart van den Valentyn always brought along her signature plum cake, a dish she had learned to prepare in Germany. It was just one of the goodies served but, as a child, it was my favorite. We children were apt to be scolded by my grandmother for stealing a slice of plum or apple off the cake before it was served--but, after all, that was the best part!

 

INGREDIENTS:

2 cups flour

1/2 cup sugar

5 1/2 tbsp butter, softened

Pinch of salt (1/8 tsp)

2 tbsp vanilla extract

1 cup milk, warmed

1 oz (4 packets) yeast, fresh or dry

3 1/2 lb pared, cored and sliced apples or sliced plums

1/4 cup sugar

1/4 cup butter, melted

Golden raisins

DIRECTIONS:

Combine the first five ingredients and mix well. Mix the yeast in lightly warmed milk. Add the yeast and milk to the flour mixture, and stir until smooth. Allow dough to rest. Cover with a cloth towel (not paper) and allow dough to rise for about 1 hour in a warm place.

After 1 hour, preheat oven to 350 degrees. Give dough a deep, brief, massage before pressing it along bottom and sides of a large, shallow baking pan, 11" x 17".

Slice fruit into thin strips and arrange in rows on top of the flattened dough.

Combine t softened butter and sugar into coarse crumbs and scatter over cake. Sprinkle with golden raisins. Place pan in oven and bake for 40 minutes.

Combine 1/4 cup of melted butter with 1/4 cup of sugar and drizzle on top; or, if using a tart fruit, dust with confectionary sugar to sweeten the pie. Serve warm or chilled.

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