Here is lots of prose describing what I did and the recipe I finally made
for this cake/cookie. It was sent to a Jewish food mail list, hence the
discussion about makign it with margarine. many observant households
never make dairy cakes as most festive meals have meat and having to keep
2 sets of baking tools and pans is expensive and space consuming. I solve
it by only making dairy cookies and making my non-dairy cakes in loaf
pans(like my honey cake, etc) and dairly cakes, like for birthdays, in
round layer ones. Of course, I seldom bake these days. but always loved
this pastry that I decided to try. Next time I may well use all almond
flour, but this is the first time I have used it, so hesitated to go the
shole way. I used Trader Joe's butter for the first time and found that
it has a wonderful old fashioned butter taste tht seems to be lacking in
some of the others Ihave been using.

I used Splenda rather thaen the liquid sweetener I have, because of the
ease of measurment and my unsureness of the bulking lack in the liquids.
I know some of you like those liquide, but I tend to use them in soft
stuff like pumpkin custard or in drinks. Not so sure about baking.

If you remember, last week I talked abu tusing Splenda in a recipe for
that middle European plum cake that is between a crust and a cake that I
had from my shul cookbook I edited, Kosher Catskill Cooking(now out of
print) tht had been submitted by an excellent baker, the late Hansi
Schlittner.

Well, I tried it today. It is not a comlicated recipe, but I made some
changes and I have some thoughts on, perhpas changing it a bit mor. As I
selldom bake now, and am not entertaining for the holiday, I indulged and
used pure butter rather than the optional margarine. As keeping carbs low
is for me, very important, not only did I use the splenda for all the
sugar, but I substituted almond flour for half the flour in the recipe. I
Have never baked with almond flour, so hesitated to substitute for all of
the flour. I also looked at some recipes in Nechama Cohen's book
En-Lite-end Kosher cooking and noticed that they used various mixed
flours, but did have some, either all purpose or whole wheat flour in most
of the recipes.

Hansi's directions call for spreading the dough on a greased cookie sheet.
I used a silicone sheet which I sprayed with oil spray. Kind of likea n
ice skating rink:-) I got a very thin, almost cookie like product of
heavenly taste, but wonder if sme edges to the pan, saa an 11X7
ppyrex or even 9X18 would have produced something a bit more like a cake,
rather than a giant, soft cookie with great taste. Unfortunately, I keep
tring to even out the edges of this and may well even it out completely if
I don't stop soon:-) The butter makes is absoutely delicious, so am not
sure if margarine and a parev cake would be as delightful.

Here is the recipe. I will give both the original and my changes.

Plum Cake
Source, Hansi Schlittner in Kosher Catskill Cooking
Servings-Highly individual:-)[eerhaps 8

Ingredients:
2-2 1/2 lbs plums(I used 2 1/4 and had left over)
1 5.8 sticks butter or margarine( I used butter)
1 1/2 C flour(I used 3/4 C flour and 3/4C almond flour-finely ground
almonds)
3/4 C sugar(I used 3/4 C Slenda measures like sugar)
3 large eggs

Beat ft with sugar well. Add eggs 1 at a timecontimue to beat util nice
and creamy. Add flour(s) slowly. Spread on buttered cookie sheet. Top
with sliced plums-8 to a plum(I ha smaller plums so did 5-6 slices per
plum. Bake in a 350F oven for 45 minutes.

Note: This cake uses what are often ccalled Italian prune-plums. They
have a reltively short fall season and are oval and freestone. I woudl
not try this with other plums, but it might make a delicious peach treat
or apple. the plums are, of course the traditional fruit.

Enjoy!in either version, but do try it dairy if possible as the taste is
heavenly!

Wendyl
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