Zwetschgen are a special variety of plums. Different to the usual plums, they’re not round but oval and the colour and taste differs as well. In Switzerland they’re very popular – you can buy them frozen all year round and you can find delicious fresh ones during the Swiss Zwetschgen season from August to October. I love them and prefer them to the usual plums. I’m not sure in which other countries you can buy them. I never saw them in my London supermarkets, but the Turkish shops in London sold them in summer, and in the larger Polish supermarkets I found the frozen ones. There’s a lot of delicious things you can make with Zwetschgen, from stews to desserts and I find they go particularly well with cinnamon. Here’s my recipe for Zwetschgen tart. I make it all year round with the frozen ones from the supermarket. Important – don’t defrost the fruit but use it straight from the freezer. If you defrost first they lose all their juice and their shape and the tart ends up soggy and looking messy.
Recipe for plum tart
Tart crust
Either use a shop bought Kuchenteig (tart dough), ideally the 32cm flattened, round one, or prepare your own dough, recipe here.
Filling
- 3 tbsp semolina or grated hazelnuts or grated almonds
- roughly 500g Zwetschgen, halved (if you use frozen ones don’t defrost them, use straight from freezer)
- 2dl milk
- 1dl cream
- 1 egg
- 1 tbsp cornstarch
- 3 tbsp sugar
Method
Pre-heat oven at 220 degrees Celsius.
Put a baking parchment onto a round tart tin of 32cm diameter. Put flattened dough onto the parchment. Using a fork, make holes into the dough (this helps for a beautifully crunchy crust).
Spread the semolina or grated nuts evenly onto the dough – this layer is very important as it soaks up the surplus fruit juice while baking. If you don’t put any semolina or nuts underneath the fruit, you’ll end up with a very soggy tart.
Place Zwetschgen on top, cut side up.
In a bowl, mix the milk, cream, egg, cornstarch and sugar together. Pour mixture over the fruit.
Bake for 45 minutes on the lowest rack of the oven (the right temperature and the lowest rack are very important for a crunchy tart crust).
Take out of the oven, let it cool down a little and serve it like this if it’s for a main meal, or if you’re eating it as a dessert you could also add a dollop of whipped cream to make it a bit more indulgent.
Oh, yum, Zwetschen, can’t wait till they’re in season!
How do you call this kind of pie in your region of Switzerland? Around here we would call this one a Zwetschgenwähe!
Where I grew up (Thurgau) they call it Zwetschgetüüne or Zwetschgeflade. But my parents are both from Zurich so I call it Zwätschgewähe too. I’ve written an entire essay about the many words for Pie in Switzerland, here: http://www.littlezurichkitchen.ch/rhubarb-pie/
Oh this looks absolutely delicious. I love plums, and I thought the German word was for plums. I love how you teach me a bit about Swiss life with each post! Can’t wait to try this recipe.
Thank you, that makes me happy! Yes plums are the round ones, we do have them too but I prefer the Zwetschgen 🙂 The pie is so delicious, we love it 🙂
Could you possibly give the recipe in cups, measuring spoons for those of us not living in Europe now ?
Hi there and thanks for asking. At the moment unfortunately I‘m not able to translate everything into cups etc as this is only a small blog I‘m writing in my free time and it would be a too large atask. I use lots of US recipes myself and use some conversion websites. It‘s not ideal but it works ok. Sorry I‘m not able to help right now, maybe later on when I have a bit more time.
1 Dl is approximately 7 tablespoons. American living in Switzerland. 😉
PS: just made this pie for my Swiss husband and father-in-law. They loved it! (Used 5 tbls sugar because it was our dessert with espresso)
yay, that’s great to hear! you made my day 🙂
New to Zürich, I’ve been buying this from a local shop. Just made this today myself from your recipe — excellent! Other than Zwetschgen what other fruit or fruit combos do you think would taste great in this Wähe format?
Yes lots of fruit work for this recipe: I often use frozen apricots from the supermarket (use frozen and straight into oven), grated apple, sliced apple, cherries (also frozen cherries from supermarket, straight into the oven), rhubarb (add a bit more sugar as rhubarb is very sour), or blackberries. These all work really welll 🙂
Belated thanks for your great ideas re: using other fruit. This has become my go-to recipe for fruit-based Wähe!
1dl (decilitre) is 100mls