Because of divorce and a peculiar family dynamic, Mom was raised by her aunt and uncle from the time she was about four years old until she married Pop. One of the best things to come from this arrangement was that we had extra "grandparents". Plus, Mom had an extra grandma, in effect, by virtue of her maternal aunt's marriage.
We were all blessed, therefore, to spend Christmas, plus several other holidays and a few other occasions, on the farm that family had owned since the middle of the 19th century. Outside the window of the room we kids most often filled, there stood and spun a 40-foot-tall windmill which still drove the pump for the farm's water as late as the 1970s, as the wheel at the top creaked and whined all day and night. That noise, combined with the excitement of being with the rest of our gigantic family, meant we all had a lot of sleepless nights.
For all the lack of slumber, we could always count on prying open our eyes to real, hearty farm foods -- dozens of eggs, scrambled and/or fried, slabs of bacon, fresh bread, cinnamon-raisin toast, and, occasionally, the real treat: pancakes.
Still, we never had the one treat Mom remembered from her own childhood -- the treat her grandma called "plumkuchen," but was nothing like the recipes we found as we searched Mom's 300+ cookbooks for a reasonable facsimile.
The trouble is, the treat Mom remembered was a bit like a light muffin with a fresh prune plum half (pit removed) baked up in one of those round-bottom pans that, in Scandinavian circles, makes them "AEbleskiver". It seems Great-Grandma had come up with a variation on the Danish treat (though how she got the original, since she was German, we'll never know. We'll just assume she had friends in high cupboards).
At any rate, here's our reasonable facsimile of the family treat from days of yore:
Plummy kuchen-thingies
stove top -- no baking!
Ingredients:
3/4 cup sifted all-purpose flour
1 Tablespoon granulated sugar
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon cardamom
1 cup heavy cream (or, in a pinch, half-and-half)
2 egg yolks, slightly beaten
2 egg whites, beaten until soft peaks form
melted butter
1 dozen fresh prune plums (small, dark-skinned, and heavily sweet), halved and pits removed
Directions:
Sift together flour, sugar, baking powder, salt and cardamom. Mix dry ingredients and cream into egg yolks. Fold beaten egg whites into the yolk mixture.
Heat pan over medium heat, brush lightly with butter. Half-fill wells with batter, drop in a plum half, cook until bottoms of cakes are puffed up and rich golden-brown, turn them to brown other side.
May be served plain or sprinkled with powdered sugar. I like them plain.
Apparently, the Danes served them without plums, and later American recipes included applesauce (hence the "AEble" part of "AEbleskiver"). But snce I'm in the process of growing a couple of dwarf prune plum trees in my yard, Mom has talked frequently of the day we can use the harvest to make these treats.
In the meantime, we're faking it with other fruits (namely apples, canned apricots or peaches).
And it's still a really great way to break fast on Christmas Day in the morning.
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