Feasts and Treats
Like Halloween and the German Walpurgisnacht, Lammas Eve used to be one of those dangerous nights when witches were about. Is it irony, then, that the Witches are the only ones still keeping the festival of Lammas these days? I’m not sure. It is probable that the mysterious feast of Lammas was originally a Germanic observance, so we’re observing it this year in Germanic fashion—by eating dessert first.
Serve the Pflaumenkuchen around three or four o’clock in the afternoon—that’s the coffee hour in Germany. In August, coffee and cake is best consumed on the terrace, so as not to miss a minute of this last full month of summer. When evening comes and everyone is hungry again, it’s time for Zwiebelkuchen, which busy Lammas-keeping Witches can bake a day or two ahead of time and quickly warm up in the oven.
Little Witch’s Friday Cake
No, I don’t know for certain what kind of cake Otfried Preußler’s titular children’s book heroine bakes on Fridays, only that she does always bake one in the hope that visitors might drop by. Pflaumenkuchen, meaning “plum cake,” figures into the plot of another Preußler novel, The Robber Hotzenplotz, so I would not be at all surprised if the Little Witch favored plum cake at Lammastide when Zwetshgen (Italian prune plums) come into season.
Here follows my German mother’s recipe for Pflaumenkuchen, which she serves with Schlagsahne—lightly sweetened whipped cream. Just to be different, I have provided a recipe for vanilla sauce that can be poured over the individual cake slices. One of the wonderful things about Pflaumenkuchen is that it makes a lot—enough to have some left over for breakfast the next morning.
Prep time: 30 minutes, if you don’t have help pitting the plums
Bake time: 40 minutes
Servings: 10–12
¼ cup butter (½ a stick) plus butter for greasing pan
¼ cup white sugar plus some for sprinkling
1 egg
½ teaspoon vanilla extract
1½ cups white flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
½ cup low fat milk
25–30 Italian prune plums or president’s plums, cut in half lengthwise and pitted
10-inch spring form or similar size square or rectangular baking pan
Cream butter and sugar together. Beat in egg and vanilla until well mixed. Sift in flour and baking powder a little at a time, alternating with milk. Dough will be stiff. Preheat oven to 375 degrees F.
Spread dough evenly in pan. Press plum halves cut-side-up into the dough in neat rows. Sprinkle lightly with sugar and bake for about 40 minutes. While cake is baking, you can prepare the vanilla sauce.
Vanilla Sauce
Prep time: 5 minutes
Cook time: 15 minutes
Servings: 10–12
1 vanilla bean
1 cup whole milk
2 tablespoons white sugar
½ teaspoon cornstarch
Water
3 egg yolks, beaten
With a sharp knife, slit the vanilla bean lengthwise and scrape out the “mark,” as the soft insides are called, into a small pot. (You can store the empty bean, which is still full of flavor, in a jar of sugar to make vanilla sugar, which is the kind of sugar my mother prefers for sprinkling over plum cake.) Add milk and sugar and stir until very warm but not boiling.
In a cup, mix the cornstarch with a tiny bit of water—just enough to dissolve it. Whisk egg yolks and cornstarch into vanilla mixture and continue whisking over low heat until sauce thickens. Pour into pitcher or gravy boat, straining out any lumps, cover with plastic wrap and chill. Pour over plum cake before serving.
Zwiebelkuchen
Zwiebelkuchen translates literally as “onion cake,” but it’s obviously a pie. The Germans have two words for cake, two words for cookie, but no word for pie. Go figure.
Prep time: 20 minutes
Bake time: 35 minutes
Servings: 8
2 tablespoons olive oil
2 medium yellow onions coarsely chopped (or Vidalia, red, a bunch of scallions, or a mixture thereof. There are no rules!)
1 egg
½ cup sour cream
1 tablespoon white flour
Generous dash white wine
½ cup grated Gouda cheese
Deep dish frozen pie crust, thawed
Heat olive oil in pan, add chopped onions, and cook until onions are glassy to golden.
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
Whisk the egg in a large bowl and then stir in sour cream, flour, wine, and cheese. Stir in fried onions and spread in pie crust.
Bake for about 35 minutes or until firm and golden. Cool just a few minutes before serving.
Radler
A Radler is a cyclist. The kind of Radler you drink is called a shandy in English: half beer and half soft drink or fruit juice. The Radler is the favorite drink of Germans in the summertime, and it comes in many flavors: apple, orange, lemon, raspberry, ginger, or even Waldmeistersirup (sweet woodruff syrup). Drink enough of these “cyclists” and you might just see Margaret Hamilton cycling furiously by through the golden dusk of a Lammas Eve.
Prep time: 5 minutes
Servings: 4
¼ cup sugar
½ cup warm water
¼ cup lemon juice
1½ cups seltzer
2 cups “white” or light-colored beer
In the bottom of a pitcher, mix sugar and warm water until sugar is dissolved. Add lemon juice and seltzer. (Fizz!) Fill each glass half full with lemonade, then fill the rest of the glass with beer.