Loris' Sister Corrine's Rhubarb Plauts

While fresh rhubarb is still plentiful, it's time to make plauts --- that once a year sweet-sour treat.

Plauts or streusel cake is quick and easy to make and can be made with plums or other tart fruit as well as dry cottage cheese. The combination of sugar and extremely sour fruit is irresistible.

Plauts is faster and easier to make than pie, especially in large quantities so it was and is often served at family gatherings, funerals and weddings.

In the old days, it was common to make just one dish of whatever was fresh and available and that would often be the entire meal, even if it was all dessert. The women had so much work to do, and there were so many hungry men and kids to feed, that they had to be efficient. Of course, they had to use up what they had and not waste any food.

I like to think that they instinctively knew that one had to eat seasonally to get the best nutrition and they certainly knew the taste was better. With no frigs and freezers, there was really no choice about eating what was plentiful in season.

I love the succession of summer fruits and tend to make whole meals out of whatever fruit is in season. Rhubarb is followed by strawberries, raspberries and blueberries. Summer brings cherries and blackberries, and then in late summer peaches, apricots, plums and pears appear, followed by apples in the fall. Bringing home a big box of fresh berries from a farm stand is a great excuse not to make the usual full dinner meal.

I also have a few plants of raspberries, blueberries and strawberries and the first person out in the garden in the morning can eat a handful of unbelievably sweet fruit for breakfast.

My mother always canned rhubarb in syrup, and that was a common Sunday afternoon faspa for visitors, served with Bothwell cheese, grandma's double buns (tviback) and coffee (kind of an afternoon tea). Every home had a large fancy glass bowl with a matching set of small fruit bowls, just to serve such preserves. At grandpa's house, we weren't allowed to have more than one thing on the buns. Take either cheese or jam or butter. Even having all two or three on the table was not approved of. It was a voluntary restraint and a lesson that I can appreciate now.

Nowadays you can freeze rhubarb, chopped, in airtight plastic bags, so you have it on hand any time for pie, plauts, brown betty and sauce.

This Rhubarb Plauts recipe is Loris' sister Corrine's recipe. Loris swears it's the all time best recipe and I have to agree. The various Englander that pass through my house are also very impressed and ask for the recipe. I used butter and increased the amount of rhubarb.

I really like the slightly sour cottage cheese taste in recipes so I made cottage cheese (gloms) plauts. It was delicious and satisfied my cravings. The rhubarb is the winner for me though. Some of the curds baked into hard kernels so the recipe set out below is in development. Suggestions to improve the results would be appreciated.

Corrine's Rhubarb Plauts --- the recipe

Dough
2 cups flour
1-1/2 cups sugar
1 tsp. salt
2 tsp. baking powder
2/3 cup margarine

Mix until crumbly. Reserve 3/4 cup of the crumbs for the topping.

Add:
2 eggs, lightly beaten with
1 cup milk

Mix and pour into an greased 9" x 13" pan.

Sprinkle with 2 cups chopped rhubarb.

Crumb topping
Add 3/4 cup sugar to the reserved crumbs and sprinkle on the rhubarb.
Bake at 350 degrees F. for 50 minutes.
Drizzle with icing sugar while still warm.

Gloms Plauts
(from Mennonite Foods and Folkways of South Russia)

Dough (for this step I used the dough recipe from the Rhubarb Plauts recipe above)
3 cups sour cream
5 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. salt
Flour to make dough you can roll.
Filling (for this step I followed the recipe but left out the lemon and vanilla as I don't imagine they had those in the old days)
3 cups dry curd cottage cheese (fine)
4 eggs
1-1/2 cups sugar
rind of 1 lemon
1 tsp. lemon extract
1 tsp. vanilla
Crumb topping (again I used the recipe for rhubarb plauts above)
1/4 cup butter
3/4 cup flour
3/4 cup sugar
1/4 salt

Bake at 375 degrees F. for 40-50 minutes. (I followed the baking instructions for rhubarb plauts above)