Cherry-Streusel Cake (Kirschstreusel)

This cake is one of the most traditional German cakes, and one of my favorites. It is made from jarred sour cherries, which are sold by Trader Joes in the United States. However, you can fill this cake with other fruits: apple, plum and apricot filled cakes can also be found in German bakeries.

I modified this recipe to accommodate typical US measurements such as a stick of butter, but list the metric measurements in parentheses.

Ingredients:

One deep dish baking sheet

Some grease

For the bottom batter:

1 stick butter (150 g)

1 pinch of salt

113 g sugar (150 g)

1 package vanilla sugar or some vanilla aroma

4 eggs

1 1/2 leveled teaspoons baking powder

180 g flour (250 g)

For the filling:

2 jars sour cherries

1 4.6 package cook & serve JELLO pudding or 2 packages vanilla pudding powder, if neither is available 6 tablespoons potato starch

For the streusel topping:

1 stick butter (150 g)

113 g sugar (150 g)

1 pinch of salt

1 1/2 leveled teaspoons baking powder

180 g flour (250 g)

1. Prepare the filling ahead of time (can be prepared a day ahead) to give it sufficient time to cool down. Add sour cherries with juice into a stovetop pot, mix in pudding powder. While stirring bring cherry mixture to a rolling boil, boil for 1 min, then remove from stove and let cool down.

2. Preheat oven to 180 degrees Celsius (350F).

3. Prepare cake batter: Using an electric mixer beat butter until softened. Mix in salt, sugar and vanilla sugar or vanilla aroma, add one egg at a time and mix for about 1 minute per egg. In a separate bowl mix flour and baking powder, then add in three portions to batter and mix well.

4. Pour batter onto greased baking sheet (the dough is quite heavy, so one could rather say to scrape the batter out of the bowl). Evenly coat baking sheet with batter. Pour previously prepared filling on top, and distribute evenly.

5. Prepare streusel topping: Using an electric mixer beat butter until softened, then mix in salt and sugar. In a separate bowl mix flour and baking powder, then add in three portions to batter and mix. Because this dough lacks the eggs it will form crumbles. Mix until crumbles are at wanted size. Sprinkle crumbles on top of cake until evenly covered.

6. Bake cake at 180 degrees Celsius (350F) for approximately 1 hour.

Comments:

1. Although the cherries I use in this recipe are sour cherries they are jarred in a sweet sugar syrup, so they are not very tart.

2. While the German vanilla pudding powder doesn't contain much sugar and requires the addition of sugar when preparing pudding, the American JELLO already contains sugar. Using JELLO will make the filling a little sweeter than necessary, so you could bind the cherries without any additional sugar using some potato starch.

3. For filling using other fresh fruit I would wash and cut them, then heat them in a stovetop pot with a little water, so they become oft, and add some potato starch to bind the fruit juice.

4. If you find that your baking sheet is not deep enough, take aluminum foil, and fold it to build an edge. I usually tear off two strips as long as the short and the long edge of the baking sheet, divide them in half (for the two edges with the same length), then fold them, so that they are 1/3 or 1/4 in height, and squeeze them along the edge of the baking sheet into the bottom edge. This raised edge will prevent spilling of the cake when it rises during baking.

5. If you'd like to prepare this cake in a 9"x13" inch Pyrex form I'd use about 1/2 of the recipe.