Fruit Platz

Platz is a dish from my childhood and my Mennonite heritage. It's a versatile cake with a simple dough base, fresh or frozen fruit, and a crumbly topping. For this version I used the last of the frozen plums on one end of the cake, and strawberries and rhubarb on the other end. 

Platz

Sift together: 2 cups flour, 3 teaspoons baking powder, and 1/4 cup of sugar.

Add: 1/4 cup butter and mix with fingers until fine crumbs form.

Add: 1 cup light cream and 1 egg, lightly mixed together.

Mix well. Dump onto parchment paper lined baking sheet (my foremothers just greased the pan.) The recipe says to use a "fairly large" pan - I use a 9 x 14 inch pan. The dough is sticky and hard to spread so I usually flour my hands well and spread it with my fingers. It will be thin. 

Put on a layer of fruit: pitted plum halves, sliced apples, pitted cherries, pitted apricot halves, blueberries, blackberries, raspberries, rhubarb. 

Make the crumb topping, called Ruebel

Mix together: 3/4 cup white sugar, 3/4 cup flour, 1/2 teaspoon baking powder.

Add: 1/4 cup butter and use your fingers to make crumbs. Add a little cream to make the crumbs thicker. (As I write this, I think I forgot to add any cream to the crumb mixture - it tastes just fine!)

Sprinkle the crumbs over the fruits and bake at 375 degrees for 30 minutes or so until the dough is cooked and the crumb topping is golden brown.

Serve warm, cut into generous squares. A scoop of ice cream is optional.