The beautiful plum……….
and its irresistible juiciness is the fact that makes it the perfect fruit to make a wonderful jam
…..or dropping it into a dough and making it a perfect ending…
When the plums ripened in the late summer at my grandparent’s orchard in Croatia…life around the house became very busy. Every morning the maids had to go and pick up all the plums that had fallen off the tree and collected them in large buckets. These were taken to a building on the property that the distill was kept. Then my grandfather hired men from the village to set up the distill just outside the door of that building and the process of making Slivovic was started. Slivovic is the brandy that comes from plums, and Sliva is the word for plum in Croatian.
I cannot describe the process of making Slivovic, which is a type of brandy, all I remember that I was watching the men sitting around this contraption (distill) talking and tasting the drops that came out of a spicket. One afternoon I found all four of the men snoozing in their chairs, when I gathered up the courage to taste the next drop that was gathering at the end of the spicket to drop into the container below. I put my finger under the drop and when it fell on my finger I stuck my finger into my mouth and to my horror it was a most distasteful flavor I have ever tasted. At this point one of the men woke up and I had just enough time to escape his reaching hand that was going to let me know that I was not to be where I was.
I was about 6 or 7 years old….
You see, my grandfather had an Inn which was a part of the big house and it was called Bela Villa.
And while the Sliovic was in the making, my grandmother was busy making a Plum Cake – Pita od Slive, but not only one, she usually made several cakes because they were sold as dessert at the Inn.
Here is my version of a Plum Cake that I translated from my mother’s recipe.
Plum Cake
Pflaumenkuchen has always been my birthday cake (made by my grandmother). She made usually a yeast cake, but I love it in every variation. (I’m sure it wouldn’t hurt to add some Slivovitz to the cake!)