My Polish Buttery Yeast Cake with Plums

This is my forever favourite Polish cake. As every yeast cake it has a pillowy texture and it smells of butter and freshly baked fruit. It’s just divine; my childhood memory developed to my liking: moist (hence the yogurt), light and airy. I’ve just come back from my family home in Poland where in one week I baked this particular yeast cake three times in one week and it disappeared almost immediately – always a sign of a good recipe, the one to keep.

For the cake:

• 400-410 g of plain (all purpose) flour, sifted
• 21 g of fresh yeast (or 7 g of dry yeast – one sachet)
• a little bit of whole milk, say 4-5 tablespoons
• 100 g of caster sugar
• 260 g of plain natural yogurt, full fat (at room temperature)
• 1 egg plus 2 egg yolks, slightly beaten
• a good pinch of salt
• 50 g of butter, at room temperature-softened
• about 8 large ripe plums (but not too soft if possible)

For the crumbly topping:

• 30 g of cold butter, cubed
• 30 g of caster sugar
• 50 g of plain flour

Step 1:

Warm up slightly the milk (make sure its not too hot).

Crumble the fresh yeast and place it in a cup or a small bowl. Add some sugar, pour over the milk and stir. Sift some flour on top, cover and leave in a warm place for about 10 minutes. After that time the mixture should increase in volume and gain a spongy/airy texture.

Step 2:

Put the flour and the sugar into the bowl of a standing mixer and give it a stir.

Make a small well and pour in the yeast mixture along with the eggs and start working the dough in the mixer on a lower speed using a dough hook.

Pour in the yogurt and carry on mixing the dough until the ingredients are well combined, which should take about 2 minutes.

Add the salt, increase the speed and allow the mixer to work the dough for about 6-8 minutes minutes. The dough should turn silky smooth and elastic.

Now gradually add the butter. Make sure that every portion (about a third) of the butter has been fully mixed into the dough before adding more.

Carry on mixing everything for the next 8 minutes or so. Now the dough should be shiny and even more elastic.

Brush a large bowl with some sunflower oil. Transfer the cake dough into the bowl, cover with cling film and leave in a warm place until it has doubled in size. Be patient here as the process can take  even up to 3 hours, depending on the room temperature (I tend to cover the bowl with a blanket to speed up the process).

Grease with a little bit of butter and line with a sheet of baking parchment a round spring form cake tin, roughly 26-28 cm in diameter. Now transfer the dough into the prepared baking tin, gently even out the surface, cover again with cling film and leave it to rest for another 40 minutes. It should almost double in volume again (usually the fruit and the crumbly topping is added at this stage too, but I prefer to leave this this step towards the very end).

In the meantime prepare the crumble.

Mix the flour with the sugar in a small bowl. Add the cold butter, rub and kneed gently the ingredients with your fingers in order to obtain a crumbly consistency. Don’t work it for too long as the butter will start to soften too much. Leave in a fridge until needed.

When the dough has increased enough cut the plums lengthways in half and discard the stones.

Starting with the outer circle neatly arrange the plum halves by inserting them vertically into the dough and pressing gently. For the the inner circle cut the plums again and effectively use quarters of the the plums (this way the cake will rise evenly whilst baking).    You could, of course, simply place the cut stone fruit on top, but I really love having some soft baked fruit “trapped” in the cake.

Take the crumble out from the fridge and sprinkle it on top.

Leave that cake to rise again (uncovered), just to reach the top edges of the baking tin. It shouldn’t take too long.

Preheat the oven to 170 C, static.

Bake your cake in the preheated oven for 50 minutes. It should turn deliciously golden in colour by then but it’s best to check inserting a skewer in the middle of the cake, which should come out clean.

In case the cake is browning too quickly in the oven cover it loosely with a sheet of aluminium foil.

Leave the baked cake in the partly open oven for about 30 minutes before taking it out and allowing it to cool down further in its tin.

Eat the cake whilst still slightly warm or wait until it cools down completely, It’s delicious either way. If you wish decorate it with some icing sugar, but I prefer to leave it just as it is.

Enjoy xx