German Baking: Apple Crumb Cake (Apfel Streuselkuchen)

If you come from a German background like I do, you'll know that baking is very high on the priority list.

I love my German heritage. I think it's part of why I like to make things with my hands so much - whether they be crafts or food.

Fall makes me re-catch the baking bug, so I thought I'd blog my way through my family's classic German baking recipes. A warning: you'll be seeing a lot of cakes and cookies here in the near future made with good ol' fashioned butter, sugar and flour! I find German baking recipes very simple and hearty. Anyone can make (and eat) these goodies!

I'm beginning with this scrumptiously simple apple crumb cake (or apfel streuselkuchen).

It's basically a dense white sheet cake topped with apple slices and "streusel" (the German sweet crumb that basically goes on everything). There is also another version of streusel kucken that has a yeast dough base, but I'll make that later.

This coffee cake can be made with a variety of different fruits like plums or berries, but I chose apples because my mom just dropped off a delicious bag of homegrown green apples to me last week.

This recipe was originally contributed by my second cousin Lore as part of our family's recipe book.

Streusel Pflaumenkucken (or Apfel Streuselkuchen, as I've made here)

Ingredients:

• ½ cup soft butter/margarine
• 1 to 1 ½ cups sugar
• ½ teaspoon vanilla
• ½ teaspoon salt
• 2 teaspoon baking powder
• 2 cups flour
• ½ cup milk
• fruit (eg. 2 dozen plums, pitted and halved; peeled apples or peaches, sliced; or fresh/frozen berries)
• Crumb mixture
  • 1/c cup sugar
  • 1 cup flour
  • ½ cup butter/margarine

Directions:

Lightly grease a 16 x 11 x ½" cookie sheet. Sprinkle with flour. Heat oven to 350 degrees F.

Cream first 4 ingredients. Add dry ingredients to mixture alternately with milk. Spread batter in pan.

Place fruit on top of dough. (Plums - close together in rows, skin side down; apples - can be sliced and sprinkled with cinnamon sugar; berries - if using frozen berries, don't thaw before hand.

Make struesel (crumb mixture) by mixing the three ingredients together with fingers until large crumbs form. Sprinkle over fruit.

Bake at 350 degrees F for about 40 minutes. With plumbs, you may want to broil for the last couple of minutes to bring out the plumb juice and lightly brown the streusel.

Happy fall baking, friends!