German plum dumplings (Zwetschgenknödel)
Made with sweet yeast dough, these German plum dumplings (otherwise known as Zwetschgenknödel) stuffed with Italian plums and cinnamon sugar and coated with buttered breadcrumbs after boiling are so good. Taste great with plum compote and blob of sour cream for lunch, dinner, afternoon tea or as dessert.
Servings: 12 XXL dumplings
Equipment
- Slotted spoon
- Kitchen machine or hand mixer with dough hooks
- Dough scraper (OPTIONAL)
- Silicon pastry mat or cutting board
Ingredients
For the sweet yeast dumplings
- 500 g (17,6 oz/ 4 cups) plain flour/ all purpose flour plus extra 30 g (1 oz/ ¼ cup) for dusting
- 2 ½ teaspoons dry yeast (7 g/ ¼ oz)
- 3 medium eggs Germany, large US
- 4 tablespoons sugar
- 40 g (1,4 oz) butter
- 250 ml (8.5 fl oz/ 1 cup) milk
- a pinch of salt
For the filling
- 4 tablespoons sugar
- 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
- 12 fresh plums or apricots
For the topping
- 10 tablespoons butter or margarine
- 200 g (7,1 oz/ 1 1/3 cups) bread crumbs
For the sour cream sauce, to serve with
- 200 g (7,1 oz/ 3/4 cup + 2 tbs) sour cream
- 5 tablespoons plain yogurt
- 1 tablespoon heavy cream
- 2 tablespoons vanilla sugar
Instructions
Make the dough and buttered breadcrumbs
- Put the butter in a jar with milk and melt in the microwave. You could also melt the butter on a stove. In the meantime combine flour, sugar, yeast, salt and eggs in a bowl. Start mixing, while adding the lukewarm milk - butter mixture slowly. Knead the dough very well until you see bubbles in the dough. This takes about 10 minutes.
- Cover with a kitchen towel and let the dough rise for 1 hour or until it has doubled its size in a warm place. In the meanwhile make the cream sauce, cinnamon sugar and buttered bread crumbs.
- In a bowl combine sour cream, vanilla sugar, heavy cream and plain yogurt and mix very well. Set aside.
- Melt half of butter/ margarine in a pan or skillet over medium low heat. Once margarine hast melted, stir in half of the breadcrumbs. Continue stirring until crumbs are golden brown. Remove from the heat and transfer to an empty plate. Do the same to the remaining margarine and bread crumbs.
Make cinnamon sugar and cut the plums
- In a bowl/ plate combine sugar with cinnamon and mix well. The quantity of the plums that you'll be needing depend on the number of dumplings that you will be making.
- Wash the plums very well and let them dry. Take 12 plums and cut them just on one side lengthwise as shown on the photo below. The stones remain inside.
Shape the fruit dumplings
- Transfer the dough to a lightly floured silicone pastry mat or cutting board. Slightly flour the dough and rub it. Dust your hands very well. Using a dusted dough scraper or a dusted knife divide the dough in the middle and take a bit of the dough. (SEE NOTE 1 & 2)
- Take one dough part at a time, dust it with flour and flatten it with your hands. Take one of the plums that you previously prepared and put it in the center. Sprinkle with ½ teaspoon cinnamon sugar. Fold the dumpling such that the plum is covered and then roll into a ball shape.
- Put the balls on a lightly floured cutting board. Don't forget to leave enough space between the rolls for them to expand. Cover with a kitchen towel and let rise for another 20 minutes.
- During this time you can boil the water and divide the buttered breadcrumbs among plates. Because if you only use one plate to coat in all the dumplings the breadcrumbs will loose their crispiness since the dumplings contain excess water on the outside after cooking.
Boil the plum dumplings and serve
- Meantime put water in a large pot and bring to a boil. After 20 minutes, dust your hands and pick up one dumpling at a time. Lightly shape it into a ball once again, if it has lost its shape.
- Put the dumpling in the pot with boiling water. Put three more dumplings in the pot. (You can make up to 4 dumplings at one time). Cover and let cook for 5 minutes. Turn the dumplings, cover and let cook for another 5 minutes.
- Using a spotted spoon or something similar remove the dumplings from the pot. Put each dumpling on a separate plate and coat with buttered breadcrumbs. Repeat the process until you have cooked all the dumplings. Serve with the creamy sauce that you've made previously and plum compote.
Video
Notes
- You could also divide the dough into 12 equal dough parts at once. Feel free to use the kitchen scale to weigh them. One dumpling weighs around 100 g (3.5 oz). You can also make more, but smaller dumplings.
- It's very important that the working surface and your hands are always dusted with the flour. Because the dough is sticky.