Heritage Recipes

Pflaumenkuchen Memory

Grandpa didn't really have a recipe for Pflaumenkuchen or at least one was not handed down but the recipe is simple. The cake is made just like pineapple upside down cake (melted butter, brown sugar and fruit in pan bottom topped by plain vanilla cake batter)  only with halves of pitted Italian prune plums (the little dark purple sweet plums, not tart).

Grandpa Bruno came from Dresden Germany as a young adult in the early 1900s. He landed in NY but soon moved to Quebec City in Canada where he worked as a waiter and maitre'd in the finest restaurants. By the time he was in his 30s (about the late 1920s) he immigrated to Detroit and  there he married my paternal grandmother who was still raising  my dad who was by then a teen. He passed while I was a teen but he left a real impression as a fabulous grandpa. He was an amazing gourmet cook making holiday and the traditional Sunday meals we had with our grandparents very special with recipes like Pflaumenkuchen, deviled eggs with caviar, leg of lamb with mint sauce, fancy relish trays and much more.

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