Nothing tastes more like fall than fresh baked pumpkin goods. I love just about anything with pumpkin in it. It definitely wasn’t always that way but it’s amazing how your taste buds change as time passes.
My original thoughts were to make some German pumpkin plachinda. It was one of those wonderful things my mother used to make that got pushed into the back of my memory.
It seems most recipes you find on the internet make plachinda as individual pastry turnovers with a pumpkin filling. I think I recall my mother making it in a rectangle casserole dish with the pastry on the bottom and up the sides and the filling showing.
I decided to do some ‘recipe development’ and try making some German streuseltaler and top it with a sweet pumpkin (plachinda) filling.
Streuseltaler was inspired by the round shape of the taler, a silver coin used throughout Europe for almost four hundred years. Its name lives on in the currency called dollar.
Taler is a German word for coin, so the name of the dessert literally translates to streusel coin. Basically, a free form tart made with a yeast dough topped with a huge amount of streusel, sometimes filled with custard and often with a sugar glaze.
A traditional German streusel (streusel meaning something ‘strewn or scattered’ in German) bakes up into shortbread balls. It makes a crunchy, cookie-like top but is soft on the bottom where it meets the bread or fruit compote.
Streusel was first popularized in Germany. In its simplest form, it consists of flour, sugar and butter but gets even better with the addition of oatmeal, cinnamon and nuts …. just my opinion of course!
In the history of cooking, one could find recipes that have constantly changed and could be seen as a connecting link between modern times and our past. I guess this is my contribution to the evolution of plachinda.
For all of you who love pumpkin, here’s a treat you don’t want to miss!
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SERVINGS
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- 1/2 cup lukewarm water
- 1 Tbsp active dry yeast
- 1 tsp sugar
- 1 Tbsp butter, softened
- 1 tsp salt
- 1 tsp cinnamon
- 2 large eggs
- 2/3 cup canned PURE pumpkin puree
- 3 cups flour
- 1 cup canned PURE pumpkin puree I purchased a 398 ml size can of pure pumpkin puree & use whatever I had left after I made the dough).
- 6 Tbsp brown sugar OR to taste
- 1/4 tsp EACH cinnamon, ginger & allspice
- 1/2 cup butter, cold & cubed into 1/4-inch pieces
- 1 cup flour
- 1/4 cup sugar OR to taste
- 1/2 tsp cinnamon
- 1 tsp vanilla
- pinch of salt
- 3/4 cup powdered sugar
- 2 Tbsp lemon juice
Ingredients
Pumpkin Dough
Pumpkin Filling
Streusel Topping
Glaze
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- In a small bowl, add yeast, lukewarm water & 1 tsp sugar. Allow to sit about 10 minutes until frothy.
- In a large bowl, combine yeast mixture, butter, salt, cinnamon, eggs & pumpkin puree. Mix well. Add flour, one cup at a time, until well combined. Knead dough for about 8-10 minutes or until smooth & soft. Place dough in a greased bowl, cover with a tea towel & allow to rise for about 1 hour or until double in size.
- In a small dish, combine the filling ingredients, set aside.
- In a small bowl, combine flour, sugar, vanilla, cinnamon & salt. With a pastry blender, cut in butter until mixture resembles coarse crumbs. Set aside.
- Line a baking sheet with parchment paper. Place dough on a lightly floured work surface & divide into 12 pieces. Form each piece into a ball & allow it to rest for about 5 minutes.
- Space out the balls on parchment lined baking sheet. With fingertips or the back of a Tbsp., press out center of each ball to about 4-inch diameter. Add about a Tbsp of pumpkin filling to each dough piece & spread leaving a border around the outside.
- Divide streusel topping evenly between the pastries. Allow to rise for about 15-20 minutes.
- Preheat oven to 350 F.
- Bake for about 10-12 minutes. Allow to cool completely on a wire rack. In the meantime, you can prepare the glaze.
- In a small dish, whisk powdered sugar & lemon juice to a thick glaze. When streuseltaler are cooled, drizzle with glaze.
- The picture at the bottom of the recipe is MY version of my mother's plachinda. I had posted it on a blog in October 2016. She used to serve this wonderful pastry when she made a white bean soup. At the time I thought it was an odd combination but it works! Another one of those 'taste of a memory' kind of comfort foods.