The recipe for “Zwetschgenknödel”, as they are called, came from my father’s mum. It’s not a traditional Bavarian dish, but a Silesian one. My mum makes them with plums rather than damsons, same difference.
This may not be one of the most photogenic dishes in the world, but it’s my uncontested favourite. Why? Because it’s essentially… like CAKE!
It all starts with yeast, flour and water to make a big lump of dough.
Then you shape it into palm-sized balls, stuffing them with plum or damson slices. Peaches might work just as well, I guess.
Next, you drop the dumplings into boiling water and leave them to simmer for about15 minutes.
And hey presto!
Served with a heavy dusting of sugar and cinnamon, and browned butter poured over the top. I added some blueberries for good measure.
And yes, I ate all three of them. Without even struggling.
Lady Of The Cakes 
*added to my Things I Will Eat In Germany list*
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Trouble is, I’ve never seen them on restaurant menus… 😦
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dass sieht sehr lecker aus. And that is as far as my German goes ;-). Looks delicious. Just out of bed and did not have breakfast yet. Jummie.
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They are all gone… 😦
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Np. The Latvian bakeries have to do. I guess that was a sunny moment when you ate them.
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Yes, yes it was 🙂
I’ve heard good things about Latvian bakeries, so I won’t feel too sorry for you having to contend with that option.
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They look so easy, even I could make them.
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The tricky thing is the dough…
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Dough, I can do. But the name alone is enough to make me afraid of learning German.
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If you’ve managed to get to grips with Russian, I think you’d do OK.
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You don’t have to pronounce it for it to be DELICIOUS!!! ‘Yumm’ is the same in all languages.
(PS – Mom flew in from the US last week, saw how I’ve been ‘living it up’ in Moscow, put me on a diet. So now all I think about is food.)
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They look delicious. And German is such a sexy language… Have you seen this? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-_xUIDRxdmc
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Japanese has the same image problem from all the shouting in war films…
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When I went to Berlin, I did my two German words for some Germans (krankenwagen and funf for some reason). I did it in my GERMAN accent and they were like, yeah, we don’t really sound like that. And they spoke in German and it was really soft and sounded lovely!
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Krankenwagen and Krankenhaus… everyone finds that funny, and I can sort of see why 😉
Not all dialects sound the same. The Saxons are the Brummies of Germany – it’s godawful, everybody hates that accent!!!!
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Ha ha, I wonder if there’s a Brummie of most countries! I’m pretty close to Birmingham here and some of the accents are hideous!
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Of course you are! I lived in Leamington Spa for a while, so I know the area a bit.
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Leamington Spa is lovely actually – Rugby or Drugby as it’s known, not so much 😉
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Yes it was lovely…. but very small.
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I told you… There is always something you miss a little bit
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Mmm. Looks yummy!
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Dumplings are really popular here in Hungary too. We also have plum filled dumplings (my favorite) but the dough is made with potatoes. We also have cottage cheese dumplings.
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I can imagine potato dumplings… they’d be much heavier than the yeast dough ones, but very good, I bet!
Cottage cheese dumplings? That’s intriguing. Or do you mean quark?
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Yes quark. cottage cheese and quark are not the same? We have alot of quark dishes, even more then poppy seed dishes….
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No, not the same… cottage cheese is lumpy/grainy – completely different consistency to quark. I do love quark in bakery, probably as much as poppy seeds. Sometimes, they even combine the two 🙂
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