A good bakery is a wonderous thing. You’ll quite often find me, nose pressed against the glass, eyeballs widened, and probably just the hint of drool coming from the side of my mouth. I don’t usually go in, I don’t need to. I like just looking. Seeing what’s on offer, how they have presented different things, and getting ideas for my own baking efforts.
Many moons ago, I lived for awhile in Germany. Twice a week I would head off, cold crisp air on my cheeks. Hands wedged into pockets and music wedged into ears, I would set forth on my two buses to get to a German language class. I loved this time. I loved the German winter, I loved the alone time, I loved being in a different country, I loved learning the language… and I really loved stopping off at a bakery afterwards.
Germany bakeries are a thing of wonderous beauty. So many different types of wonderful breads, and enough sweet goodies for a young Australian gal to do more than a little drooling. Everything I ever ate was delicious. Really delicious. Sure I probably headed for the same kind of things time and time again, but when you are on to a good thing, why stop eh?
So what did I go for? Anthing vaguely fruity/ sour related. Cherry strudel? You betcha. Plum struesel? Yes indeed. They all had my name well and truly written all over them.
So with a German bakery in mind, Plum Shortcakes it was.
Fruity, not crazy sweet, but enough of sugar kick just to say … ja bitte, das ist lecker.
Plum Shortcakes
200g plain flour
100g self raising flour
150g softened butter
150g sugar
2 tsps vanilla
zest of one lemon
2 beaten eggs
plums
Cream the butter and sugar together, add vanilla, eggs and lemon zest. Then fold through flour. Into your tray/s and add halved plums. Bake at 180C until risen, slightly golden, and smells like you can’t wait to eat it any longer (cooking time will depend on the tray you use.)
Great recipe Brydie, especially with the plums so glorious this year! And how cool that you got a chance to live in Germany for a while! It must have been quite an experience! 🙂
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It certainly was Celia, I loved it over there. As for the plums they have been lovely to cook with.
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They’re beautiful! I just love looking in bakery windows too. *sigh*
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good to hear of another that *sighs* 🙂
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Thanks Brydie, I echo Celia, the plums are so good this year this is a perfect recipe.
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let me know if you make it Rose.
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i love it when the juice from the plums seeps into the buttery cake like yours has..it looks so good..german baking is pretty darned good..and lucky you for living there and being able to sample the genuine article..x
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I like it when the juice seeps too Jane. I just had a ‘seepy’ crumble made with a whole heap of plums.
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OH YUM – they look divine! I’ve got a friend coming to lunch on Saturday so I think I’ll attempt these for dessert. (Can you please give me a teensy bit more guidance re approximate cooking times? I’d hate to burn them! And should I use fresh plums or would preserved plums work? Thanks so much Brydie).
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Keri I think fresh plums would be better, hold their form a little easier, and contrast the flavour with the tartness to the sugar… saying that, that’s just catering to my tastebuds. If you can find some preserved plums in juice rather than syrup that might work… or fresh blueberries, nectarines, apricots also should work…. Just play 🙂
(and for the cooking times, I would start peeking from 25 minutes on. I made these in rectangular individual cake pans, but one whole tray would work just as well.)
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Thanks Brydie – you’re always so helpful : ) I’ll let you know how they turn out. I’ve got little individual (round) pie tins so I thought I’d use them. I’ll be happy if they look half as good as yours!
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Those are just darling as we’d say over here!
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Thanks darling!
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I come to city hippy farmgirl for my dose of nose on the glass, bakery dreaming. They look gorgeous, if only I could smell them!
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I’ll send you a few. Sweet vanilla-ry, a hint of lemon and the tartness of the plum… you can smell it Alison, I’m sure you can 🙂
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I had to learn German at school and I was hopeless at it. But I think if I was put in the environment you were in, I could make it work. That’s a beautiful looking plum cake and with plums being in such abundance at the moment it makes so much sense to be cooking with them xx
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Unfortunately I’ve forgotten the majority of what I’ve learnt… besides asking if you slept well- which isn’t particularly helpful.
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Totally agree with that taste sensation Brydie, and this recipe looks and sounds very tasty. As a matter of fact I’ve just made, last night, a slice that sounds quite similar, but I spread some steamed plums over the top and then sprinkled a mix of rapadura sugar and coconut over that. The plums were badly in need of rescuing/having something done to them, before nothing could be done to them! :))
So I cut them up and steamed them. When I found this particular recipe, I knew these would work well instead of the whole fruit. Just the right amount of fruity/tart/sweet. Yum!
Hope you don’t leave too much drool on the bakery windows! ;D x
p.s. has something changed here, coz I’m having to log in to wordpress to leave my comment? Very odd.
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Annoyingly yes regarding the comments. I’ve put an explanation up in my side bar. I’m hoping they will change it back??
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I have plums at home and now you are making me want to bake with them – or at least run off to the nearest bakery for a treat! I would join you at the window
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Shall we line up together and leave drool marks Johanna?
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Oh. I want some. Or one. I want one.
No fresh plums right now.
I wonder if I were to try some stewed prunes?
No- I’ll wait for some plums.
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No wait for the plums Heidi, if you think about them all that time waiting for the season to come around, just imagine how good they will taste!
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Your bakery window gazing sounds rather like my picture gazing when you post images and recipes like these…except I would definitely enter and make a purchase if only the computer screen would allow me 🙂 These are beautiful looking shortcakes.
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Thanks Kari, that’s really kind.
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These look fabulous and just the thing for this weekends baking as my tree if dripping plums. Those German bakeries are a sight to behold! We were once deep in the vast emptiness of Namibia and we came upon a tiny town with the biggest German bakery I’ve ever seen. There were 32 huge cakes and the cafe part was full of people. I think the whole population of that town was there eating cake!
Love you blog.
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It’s funny, I’ve heard there are some amazing Germany bakeries in Namibia. Not the first place you would normally think of for awesome German food!
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I also love bakeries for ideas! Love your shortcake 🙂
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They are wonderful aren’t they Tandy… a good one that is… And think of all the wonderful ones you will be visiting in Italia.
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Oh wow – they look fantastic. Love that they have so much plum per slice. That’s a good PPS ratio you have going on.
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🙂 PPS is always important!
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Firstly, I can’t believe all the blogging you’ve done with a brand new little bub. How wonderful to see you resume doing the things you like? As I sit here marveling at your ability to cope with two small children and a newborn, I’m reminded of myself. When I brought home my third bub, Nicole, it was to a garage actually as we were building the house. It could of been worse as in baby no two’s case – we brought him home to a leaky caravan. What a nightmare!
I digress. The point I wanted to make was that here I had become a mother for the third time and off I went teaching myself how to sew. I was addicted. I figured I would make things small for the kids and if they didn’t work out, then it wouldn’t matter because I won’t have used much fabric. Well they did work out and off I went. I was a total lunatic; all this work, not enough sleep, trying to cook and clean in the garage all the while sewing every spare second I could. It was wonderful. What a time. I’m enjoying thinking about it. I’m sure you’re savouring every moment in life too.
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I wanted to see if the comment would work before going on.
Secondly, you lived in Germany? Wow. Where? My mother came from Dusseldorf and Mitchell’s best friend lives in Stuttgart. When I went there three years ago, it was simply breathtaking. I loved Germany and spent no where near enough time there. Mitch said Heidelberg was stunning and he loved Bavaria and all the Black Forest region.
And I thoroughly agree: the bakeries there are amazing. I took photos of the famous German Plum Cake. Do you recall seeing them in the shops over there – massive round baking tins – one cake would take up half the space in one window. They were enormous. So fascinating.
Thirdly, I made something very similar to your recipe today. Instead of plums, I used canned cherries. I also grated an apple and whipped together a vanilla buttercake mixture. Together with some warm home made custard, it was the perfect afternoon tea on this rainy, almost wintry day on the gold coast. All I can say is, great minds think alike.
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Trust me Mariana, there is a good degree of utter chaos with the 3! Blogging is good as I can still do it one handed, two fingered typing style although at a much slower pace than what I was doing.
Germany, I was in a little town called Wuppertal, pretty close to your mother’s home town of Dusseldorf, which is actually where I had my language classes 🙂
And your recipe?… delicious!
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lovely in its simplicity. and it does look scrumptious… never been to Germany, but they do seem to know one or two things about baking 🙂
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yes they do indeed.
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Ahh I see! Sorry Brydie I hadn’t seen that when commenting. Plum forgot to look around to see if there was an explanation! 😀 Get it??!! plum forgot! I know pretty weak joke…..sigh
Yes I often wonder why things that work often have to be fixed!!!
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I love the whole fresh plums in your bakery delight. I have never been to a German bakery but maybe it is a good thing to just stand outside as going in could be deadly… or at least not good for our hips. Take care, BAM
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These look gorgeous with the plum juice seeping into the cake. Plums are just perfect in cakes in my humble opinion 🙂
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I love those plum cakes… the photos are so tantalizing!! Plums+Cake=Heaven
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Goodness me, these look amazing!! I lived in Germany too as you might know and eating food from their bakeries was heaven on a stick. And the cause of a whopping 12kg weight gain 🙂 Actually my favourite was a plum thing with quark and a sugary crumble on top – quark is hard to get here but there is one german bakery in Hobart that does amazing quark things. I WILL definitely make this and let you know how it goes. Have a great weekend xx
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MMM,..what a superb creation! I thnik I would add a bit of cinnamon or a plum liqeur to it!
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