Simple plum crumble cake

I was going to write about Hungary, but instead I’m writing about Hungarian plums, the ones we call węgierki 🙂 I’ll try to write more about Hungary at the weekend, perhaps. It would have been truly wonderful if it hadn’t been for a bout of conjunctivitis that gave me a really hard time. In short, though: Budapest is brilliant. Really. I recommend it to everyone.

Lake Balaton, and Balatonfüred in particular, came as a surprise. I’d expected a lot from Budapest, whereas Balaton was something of a compromise. Somewhere within a reasonable distance (I wanted to drive and was setting off from southern Poland), somewhere that wasn’t too expensive, with water and warm weather.

Balaton ticks all those boxes, and Balatonfüred is the most charming place, with two very nice “beaches” and lots of genuinely pleasant little restaurants. I’ll put it this way: given a choice between the Polish coast at the height of summer (with the possible exception of the Tricity, which I love, and perhaps Świnoujście) and Balaton, I’d take the latter.

As for plums, I didn’t get to eat a cake in Hungary quite as delicious as the one I made today. I wanted a quick, simple recipe without an ingredient list a mile long 😉 And I found one here. My plum crumble cake recipe is really only a slightly modified version. Still, I definitely streamline the prep and, as usual, make the quantities a bit more down-to-earth (measuring by the glass :).

It’s been a while since I had plum cake, and I’ll admit I’d been craving that slightly tart flavour with its hint of cinnamon. Especially since Sunday, when I spent a lovely afternoon in Dąbrowa Górnicza (after a long night ;). Why? We were strolling down to the local lake/reservoir/pond (delete as appropriate), Pogoria 3, when a plum tree suddenly loomed up ahead of us on the pavement, its branches laden with węgierki. Still just a touch underripe (but only a touch). I’d never seen anything like it. See for yourselves:

Self-service, basically. You’ll have to make the cake yourselves too, but I promise you the method is exceptionally, truly exceptionally primitive. So get to it. I recommend it.

At a glance: 

Prep time: 15 minutes

Oven temperature: 180 degrees Celsius

Baking time: 45 minutes (first 15 minutes for the base on its own, then 30 minutes for the whole cake)

Serves: 4 generous slices (or 6 sensible ones)

Calories: this cake does have calories (there’s a fair bit of butter in it, and sadly it won’t work without the butter)

Ingredients for a pleasantly tart plum cake:

• two glasses of wheat flour
• about 800 grams of prune plums (just under a kilo)
• a glass and a half of icing sugar
• 3/4 of a block of butter
• two tablespoons white sugar
• two teaspoons ground cinnamon

Method (Kasia can help – the Kasia food processor, that is):

First I set up the Kasia food processor. I’ve no idea if you can do this with a blender, probably not with mine, but since I’m at my parents’ I have Kasia handy, complete with her dough attachment. That’s what I used.

Into the processor bowl went the butter cut into pieces, a glass of flour and a glass of icing sugar. I switched on the kneading setting (in other words, not too fast). After about 5–6 minutes I added the remaining flour and icing sugar. I worked the dough (well, Kasia did) for about another 2–3 minutes. The dough should be quite crumbly, a slightly drier version of ordinary tart pastry.

I lined a square tin (roughly 25 cm by 25 cm) with baking paper, spread half the dough over it and pressed it down firmly with a spoon to form the base. I put it in the oven, preheated to 180 degrees Celsius, for 15 minutes.

While the base was baking I set about peeling the plums. I cut them into small pieces (7–8 pieces per plum) and set them aside in a bowl. I put two tablespoons of sugar and two teaspoons of cinnamon in a glass and mixed them thoroughly.

After 15 minutes of baking I took the base out (I left the oven on, we’ll be baking again in a moment) and spread the plums evenly over it. I sprinkled them evenly with the cinnamon sugar, then scattered the remaining dough over the top (the photo below shows you how it looked).

I put it back in the oven for 30 minutes (still at 180 degrees Celsius). Then the cake is ready. You can take it straight out of the oven, but I’d advise against eating it “straight away”, as it’ll fall apart. Give it just 15–20 minutes to cool a little and you can eat it warm.

Unfortunately there’s so little cake that it disappears faster than it cools. But I promise you it’s worth it. Enjoy!