Kuchen – South Dakota

Cathy: Kuchen, meaning cake in German, is a very traditional dessert from South Dakota.  It’s an easy recipe and is used with ingredients most families have on hand.  Not overly sweet, which is the norm for most German desserts, it’s made with a sweet yeast crust, fruit on hand, a custard filling along with a sugar/flour/butter topping.  It’s often served with a small dollop of whipped cream – the real kind, made from scratch called schlag sahne.

This simple cake/torte-ish (not a cake, not a pie) dessert stems back to the great European migration to the Midwest back in the early 1900’s, of which our family is very much a part of.  My Grandfather on my Mother’s side, Carl Stevens, came over from Denmark around 1890 as a boy with his family.  He later met and married Edna Anundsen, who was born in the US with parents who immigrated from Norway and Denmark.  They had a large farm in Erwin SD and had six children, one of whom was my Mother. We still have family in that area.

This dessert so reminds me of visiting German Bäckereien when we lived there for four years in the late 90’s.  Just to stand at the counter of these neighborhood bakeries and gaze at all the beautiful cake creations – usually like this recipe, with a sweet thick crust, with fruit, or custard and a lovely glaze, served usually cut in a rectangle on a small paper plate, wrapped in paper.  They were as hard to resist as the fresh bread and brotchen. 

When searching for a recipe for this dessert, it was funny that I could only find recipes that made at least four kuchen at a time. German hausfraus and South Dakotian women didn’t mess around when it came to being productive and efficient with their time, baking and freezing for later, or being ready for the large neighbor family to come by for kaffee and kuchen. I decided to make two – one with cherries from my garden and one with apricots from the farmers market. 

This recipe makes 4 (FOUR) 9 inch cakes

(The recipe calls for a dough rise overnight in the refrigerator – I let rise for about 1 hour in a warm place and it was fine.)

Dough

• 1 1/4 cups whole milk
• 1 package of active dry yeast
• 1 large egg
• 4 cups all-purpose flour, plus more for rolling
• 1/3 cup sugar
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 1/2 sticks (6 ounces) unsalted butter, softened

Pastry Cream

• 1/4 cup all-purpose flour
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1 1/2 cups whole milk
• 2 large eggs
• 1 tsp pure vanilla extract
• 2 pounds fruit – apricots, cherries, peaches, plums, pears….

Frosting

• 3 Tbs unsalted butter, softened
• Pinch of cinnamon
• 3/4 cup sugar
• 3 Tbs all-purpose flour

1. Heat the milk to 110° and transfer it to a small bowl. Stir in the yeast and let stand for 5 minutes, until dissolved. Stir in the egg. In a large bowl of a standing electric mixer fitted with a dough hook, mix the 4 cups of flour with the sugar and salt; add the warm milk mixture and knead at medium-low speed until a stiff dough forms, about 3 minutes. Add the softened butter and knead at medium speed until the dough is silky and soft, about 5 minutes. Transfer the dough to a buttered bowl, cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate overnight. (I LET THE DOUGH RISE IN A WARM PLACE FOR ABOUT 1 HOUR UNTIL IT DOUBLED IN SIZE)
2. In a medium bowl, combine the flour with 1/4 cup of the sugar and 1/4 cup of the milk and whisk to a paste. Whisk in the eggs and vanilla. In a medium saucepan, heat the remaining 1 1/4 cups of milk and 1/4 cup of sugar over moderate heat until the sugar is dissolved. Gradually whisk the hot milk into the egg mixture, then cook the mixture in the saucepan over moderate heat, whisking constantly, until thickened and no floury taste remains, about 4 minutes. Transfer the pastry cream to a bowl and cover with plastic wrap, pressing it directly onto the surface. Refrigerate overnight.
3. Butter four 9-inch pie plates (I USED 9″ SPRING FORM PANS). Divide the dough into 4 pieces and flatten into disks (it will be a firm dough). On a lightly floured work surface, roll out each disk of dough to a 9 1/2-inch round. Place each round in a pie plate, making sure that the dough doesn’t extend past the rims. Cover the pie plates with plastic wrap and let stand at room temperature until the dough has risen slightly, about 1 hour.
4. Preheat the oven to 350° and set racks in the upper and lower thirds. Lightly press the dough with your fingers to deflate it. Arrange the apricots on the bottom in a single layer. Spread the pastry cream evenly over the apricots.
5. In a medium bowl, combine the sugar with the flour and butter and rub with your fingers until the texture is sandy. Sprinkle the topping over the pastry cream and dust lightly with cinnamon. Bake the kuchens for 40 minutes, until the crusts are deeply golden. Transfer the kuchens to a rack to cool completely before serving.

The kuchens can be made, cooled completely and frozen for up to 1 month.

I hope you enjoy this as much as I did! The recipe is from Food & Wine