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plum coffee cake with streusel topping on a cake plate

Plum Coffee Cake

This Plum Coffee Cake recipe features juicy Italian prune plums on a tender shortcrust pastry topped with fluffy meringue and crunchy streusel with poppyseeds and hazelnuts! A great recipe for late summer and fall!
Course Dessert
Cuisine German, Polish
Keyword plum coffee cake, prune plum cake
Prep Time 25 minutes
Cook Time 1 hour 5 minutes
Total Time 1 hour 30 minutes
Servings 12
Calories 314 kcal

Ingredients

INGREDIENTS FOR CAKE:

  • 2 1/2 cups of cake flour
  • 3 tablespoons of powdered sugar
  • 200 g butter or margarine cold - 3/4 cups + 2 tbsp
  • 5 yolks
  • 1 teaspoon of baking powder
  • pinch of salt
  • 1/2 tsp rum essence / aroma or 1 tsp vanilla essence or almond essence

INGREDIENTS FOR MERINGUE

  • 5 egg whites at room temperature
  • 1 cup of sugar
  • 40 g of potato flour or cornstarch - 4 tbsp
  • pinch of salt

TOPPINGS

  • about 800 g / 2 pounds of plums
  • 4 tablespoons of poppyseeds ground (use breadcrumbs as substitution)
  • 3 tbsp ground hazelnuts use any other ground or chopped nut as substitution

Instructions

  1. Sift the flour together with the baking powder and powdered sugar. Add salt and pieces of cold butter. Chop with a knife or pastry cutter or  combine in a food processor quickly to make the shortcrust pastry. Add the egg yolks and knead all to a uniform dough. You can use hand mixer with hook attachment to prepare the dough. Divide the finished dough into two parts (one a bit larger than the other - 2:3 , the larger part will be the bottom), wrap it with cling film, and chill for 2 hours.

  2. Preheat the oven to 180 C / 365 F.

  3. Line a square baking pan with dimensions 9x13 inches / 25 × 35 cm with baking paper. Grate the bigger half of the dough into the baking pan using a box grater and spread it evenly, pressing it lightly to form the base. THis sounds unusual but it works!  We bake this cake base at 180 C - 365 for about 20 minutes. After the baking time, take it out of the oven and sprinkle with half the poppyseeds or breadcrumbs and nuts. Arrange the plum halves with the cut side up on top of the batter and sprinkle with the remaining nuts and poppy seeds.

  4. Beat the egg whites with a pinch of salt until stiff. At the end of mixing, gradually add in the sugar, cornstarch lemon juice and oil. Spread the mix over the plums and grate the rest of the shortcrust dough over the meringue. Bake at 180 C / 365 for about 40-45 minutes more . After baking, sprinkle with powdered sugar.