My dad’s parents lived five blocks away from the time I was five on. My grandpa still lives there, as do my parents. There were benefits to having my grandma so close. One benefit is that she would bring me coffee from a very young age. Neither of my parents drink coffee, but I’d developed a taste for it at the age of 2, when “Mama” let me try hers. She was always good for a cup.

Another benefit of having her close came in the form of warm food gifts: baked, bundled and dropped off via bicycle at our house, still steaming and warm. This never got old. I never got tired of apfelkrapfen (a sliced apple, dipped in batter and fried), nor the kugelhopf, the fasnachts, the cookies. Don’t even get me started on the cookies. It was always a good day when she came down the street, basket packed with warm goodies, her hair in a bun and covered with a babushka.

This is one of those recipes. It marked the start of the fall season. Zwetschgenkuchen. Zwetschgen for plum; kuchen for cake. Plum cake starts with warm milk. I put mine in the microwave for a minute. This seems to work for my microwave. Be sure not to let it scald or be too hot. You’re looking for around 110° F, a bit too hot for bath water, nowhere near hot enough to burn your skin.


After stirring in a pinch of sugar, I sprinkle the yeast across the top and wait. Five minutes later, it should start to get frothy. I give it one more gentle stir to make sure all the particles are wet and moistened. Melt 4 tablespoons of butter and let it cool. Then lightly beat in two eggs and the melted butter. Then I move to the dry ingredients.


Sift your regular, old, everyday all-purpose, sugar and a pinch of salt into a bowl.


Now we add the egg mixture. I like to make a bit of a well in the flour so it’s the flour that sticks to the dough and not to wherever the bowl got wet. That’s just me, though.


And mix. The dough will be very sticky, so a fork should be able to do the trick. You could also use a spoon. I would not use your hands. You will be covered in goo. I have plenty of recipes that require hand mixing and getting in there up to your elbows. This is not one of them. When you’ve incorporated all the wet and dry together, dump it out onto a floured surface.


And knead it just until you get a ball. Then place your ball of doughy goodness into a greased bowl. Cover it and stick it in a warm place. Now, forget about it for an hour.


These are Italian or blue plums. They are only available in the late summer, early fall. They are essential…or not. You can substitute a different plum variety if you so choose. You could even, gasp, top it all with apples and streusel and make an apflekuchen. Mmm.


Whatever fruit you decide to use, you want to cut it before placing it on there. My grandma used to fill the pan with plum halves. She’d then cut slices with two halves per slice. It’s the way she did it. It’s the way my family expects it to look.


An hour later, your dough should look like this. Okay. Maybe not exactly like this. If you use a large enough bowl, it probably won’t billow out the top the way mine did.


Again, roll it into a ball, and then roll it out with the rolling pin of your choosing.


So that it can be slid onto a baking sheet such as this.


Poke plenty of holes to prevent over puffage of the dough.


And arrange your plums as you see fit. In nice little rows, perhaps, dotted with butter. Pure butter.


And because I was being rebellious, I tried slicing up a few plums further and dumping them on top in no particular order. It represents the disorder I’m currently feeling as I sit in my living room, surrounded by chores and tasks and work. Let it sit this way for 15 minutes as your oven preheats (400°, please).


And when you pull it out of the oven, the plums should be glossy and start to run, leaving purplish imprints on the dough, and the dough should be golden brown. Then sprinkle liberally with cinnamon sugar. And eat it all before anyone takes another picture. Mama’s goods are always a fast sell in my parents’ house.

I spent a week or two at my grandpa’s during high school at one point. I was avoiding reality, and he needed someone to keep him company. At some point I went home to my parents and my four younger siblings, but he let me take a few things with me, the most important being my grandma’s cookbooks. To this day, they are one of my favorite possessions. I paged through them, looking at my grandma’s handwriting, finding her bookmarks, carefully placed in the pages. I read the recipes, tried them and somehow felt better about saying goodbye to her before I was ready.

If you’re curious what in the world a gâteau is, think of an extremely rich cake. It’s the kind of cake that makes you reach for a cup of coffee…or a glass of milk, if coffee just isn’t your thing. In my grandma’s cookbook, the out-of-print Best of Baking, this cake falls under the “Great Traditional Cakes” category. Wherever this is a traditional cake, I’m moving there. (Ignore the jam in there. I considered using it in the garnish and decided not to. It’s not there.)


You don’t really need all of those cookies. They were actually for a Viennese Chocolate Cake that I made right after the gâteau. You’ll only need one or two shortbread cookies. Pick your favorite.


I read somewhere that a traditional gâteau is made with almond flour instead of wheat-originated flour. This recipe calls for ground almonds and whole wheat flour.


I used my food processor to grind the almonds until there were no large chunks. Keep it on the “pulse” setting and be careful not to over-grind them. That would result in almond butter, and that’s not what we’re looking for.


Separate the yolks and the whites from three eggs.


Cream together softened butter and half of the sugar. (That’s a pretty bad picture. And then I forgot to take a picture of me adding the egg yolks, ground almonds and the…)


…melted chocolate. I don’t own a double boiler. We purchased new pans a year ago and I haven’t made it back and remembered to buy one. I mean to, but I don’t. Story of my life. I’ve been improvising with this bowl since then.


I had a helper in the kitchen today. Kiwi was very interested in doing all the steps, and she was also interested in taking the pictures. Then she was interested in eating the cake…which never happens. She hates cake, but I caught her eating this one.


Kiwi’s first duty was to beat the egg whites. I showed her how to go around the sides of the bowl so the mixture would be even. She did a fantastic job. Then we fold in the other sugar and the whole egg white mix gets folded into chocolate mix.


Then the whole wheat flour gets added and gently stirred in. Okay, folded, but she stirred – gently – more than anything else.


And we put all the chocolately goodness into a pan and into the oven.


Next? Melt more chocolate. This time I used Baker’s semisweet squares because I figured it was an easy way to measure the amount I was melting.


After your cake has cooled, move it to a wire rack and spread a very thin layer of chocolate on it.


Because it’s going to hold on this lovely almond paste you rolled out carefully. I used a paring knife to trim around the bottom of the cake. Press lightly across sides and surface to make sure the almond paste isn’t going anywhere.


I just kind of dumped my chocolate over the top and then spread it around. I let some drop down the sides and onto the piece of waxed paper I had used earlier while rolling out the almond paste.


I could have put just 12 almonds, one for each piece, but I’m glad I added the extra almonds. It accommodated those people that wanted to try both cakes I brought for the birthday party.


Now let the chocolate harden. We were in a bit of a hurry to get on the road, so I stuck the cake in the fridge uncovered for about 5 minutes to get it to set and make it easier to transport.


It kind of looks like a brownie, with character. A character-rich brownie.


Except it’s a cake.


A deliciously rich cake.

I let my bananas go bad again. Then I let them sit there a little bit longer because…well, I was busy. I had things to do. Then when I went in search of a banana rum cake I couldn’t really decide what I wanted. I kind of liked the idea of a sheet cake, but most of the recipes I found were either more of a pound cake or more of a spice cake with a banana base. So I made up my own recipe with Caribbean rum and bananas.
Okay, it’s not really from the Caribbean, but rum has roots there and most of the world’s rum is made there. Ron Diaz, the variety that happened to be residing in my house at the time…is from Princeton, MN. That just didn’t sound as exciting.


Or you could use artificial rum flavoring if you are underage, opposed to rum or just don’t have Ron Diaz living in your garage. I mean, we can’t all be so privileged as to have the bearded fellow hanging around waiting for you to call on him.


I don’t keep buttermilk around, and because I don’t, I made my own sour milk by mixing 3/4 teaspoon white vinegar with 1/4 cup warm milk and then letting it sit for a good 15 minutes while I got other stuff ready. If I had buttermilk from something else, I would have used it, but I didn’t.


Start with creaming and follow it with mixing. Then stir to mash, add flour and beat.


Because I like them, pecans.


And a sheet pan. This particular sheet pan happens to be 15.5″x10″ (courtesy of Pampered Chef). It’s an odd size. In standard sizes, a half size sheet pan would be 18″x13″, and a quarter size would be 9″x13″. You could easily bake this on a quarter size sheet pan; it would just come up the side a bit more. If you are sheet-pan-less, bake in your 9″x13″ pan.


It looks all golden brown and delicious when it comes out of the oven.


Again with the rum. Real or imitation extract, whatever you choose, it gives the frosting a new dimension.


Spread a thin layer across the cake.


Top with a rum-glazed pecan or…don’t. It’s up to you. Either way, it’s a delicious snack cake, perfect for the lunch box.

What this shortcake lacks is fresh, cut strawberries. Because they’re in the sauce, people. It makes it easy to bring places and to make ahead. Plus, I made strawberry malts with the sauce later. Rave reviews from my dad, the king of the strawberry malt. When we were growing up, the only time we ever stopped for ice cream was on the way to the cabin. We would find a Dairy Queen or other ice cream shop and stop. All the kids were allowed a single ice cream cone or Dilly Bar, and my dad would get a large strawberry malt. He did not share.

Sift all your dry ingredients together and add the lemon peel. I find this ensures good lemon peel distribution.


Add your wet ingredients to another bowl. Mix ‘em up and then slowly add the sifted dry ingredients.


That parchment paper again. Invest in some. It makes this whole “getting the cake out the pan” process easy peasy.


I’m going to tell you a secret. My lovely daughter was trying to help at this point. My camera was bumped. There was a dark spot that started to appear on all images. (Sensor needed cleaning.) Henceforth, there are no images of the finished cake (although I swear I took one) or the sauce, or the…wait. I made the whipped cream in the Boundary Waters.


After cutting the cake in half, I wrapped it in plastic wrap (Saran Wrap, if you must know), placed it in the fridge along with the strawberry sauce and then, when it was time to pack, I took all of that and a pint of heavy whipping cream and stuck it in the cooler. All of that to serve to my wonderful family. Loving family. With ice cream purchased at Trail Center on the Gunflint Trail. In the woods. With a moose.