When the strawberries start to bloom in the spring, make this delicious dessert. When everyone requests seconds, you know you’ve found a winning dish!
| Prep Time: | 35 mins |
| Cook Time: | 20 mins |
| Additional Time: | 2 hrs |
| Total Time: | 2 hrs 55 mins |
| Servings: | 12 |
| Yield: | 12 dumplings |
Ingredients
- 4 large russet potatoes
- ½ teaspoon salt
- 1 tablespoon butter, softened
- 2 eggs, beaten
- ¼ cup farina
- 1 cup all-purpose flour, or as needed
- 12 Italian prune plums
- 12 cubes white sugar
- ½ cup butter, melted
- ¼ cup white sugar
- 1 cup dry bread crumbs
- additional melted butter and sugar for garnish (optional)
Instructions
- Scrub potatoes, and place them into a large pot with enough water to cover. bring to a boil, and cook until tender, about 40 minutes. Drain, and cool. When potatoes are cool enough to handle, peel, and press through a ricer into a large bowl. Set aside to cool. This part of the process can be done as much as one day in advance.
- In a large bowl, mix together the prepared potatoes, salt, egg, and 1 tablespoon of butter until well blended. Gradually stir in the farina, and then the flour. If dough is still wet, more flour can be mixed in. Turn dough out onto a floured surface, and knead until smooth, about 5 to 10 minutes.
- Split open each plum where it cracks, and remove the pit. Replace each pit with a sugar cube, and close.
- On a floured surface, roll out the dough to 1/4 inch thickness. Cut into twelve 3 inch squares. Place one plum into each square, and bring the corners around to the top. Pinch together all of the seams to seal.
- Bring a large pot of water to a slow boil. Place about 4 dumplings into the water at a time. Once they float to the surface, continue to cook them for about 5 more minutes. Transfer cooked dumplings to a covered bowl, and keep warm.
- Melt the remaining 1/2 cup of butter in a small skillet over medium heat. Stir in bread crumbs, and 1/4 cup of sugar. Continue to cook and stir until browned. Remove the bread crumbs to a plate, and roll warm dumplings in the mixture until entirely coated. To serve, place a dumpling or two on a plate, sprinkle with a little sugar and a little extra melted butter, if desired.
Nutrition Facts
| Calories | 326 kcal |
| Carbohydrate | 53 g |
| Cholesterol | 54 mg |
| Dietary Fiber | 4 g |
| Protein | 7 g |
| Saturated Fat | 6 g |
| Sodium | 244 mg |
| Sugars | 15 g |
| Fat | 10 g |
| Unsaturated Fat | 0 g |
Reviews
Delicious, my mom used to make this for us back in Romania. It took me 3.5 hours but it was worth it:) I used farina or cream of wheat flour instead of bread crumbs because that is how my mother made them.
My mother used to make potato-plum dumplings then bake them in the oven with pork roast. Oh!! Yummmmm!!!!
My Bohemian Grandmother made these for dessert. It is a great recipe.
My grandmother,aunt and mom all made these. It took a lot of work since my mom always made a massive batch of them so my mom, the last survivor with the recipe, stopped making them as she got older. I found her recipe book but the measurements and method weren’t clear. These were very good but my family’s were better. Perhaps it wasthat we used prunes, sweetened them and then boiled them. It was more like a prune filling than a cooked plum. Have to give this recipe a try with plums. BTW, we had a nickname for these in the family. Jewish cannon balls. they were so good but you felt them in your belly afterward. Enjoy all.
I found the dough to be extremely sticky and added pretty much another 2 cups of flour before I could roll it out. I guess you could use a little at a time and not roll it out. Then my breadcrumbs really didn’t stick well because my dumplings were cold before we ate them. Also, any ideas for a garnish?? thanks Dan
Learned to make this from my grandmother and always loved it. I also like making this dish with apricots in exactly the same way. Yum.
Great recipe! very similar to my Austrian grandmother’s. I left the pit in and just added sugar at the table. that saves some prep time. also I made extra breadcrumbs because you can never have enough sweetened breadcrumbs!!!
Amazing!!! My Gramma used to make these and this recipe tastes just like hers! We always ate them with sour cream and sugar. Delicous
I make these in large batches to freeze every year. When any of our children (all in their late 20’s early 30’s) spend the weekend…this is on the top of their wish list. I add a little cinnamon to the bread crumbs, butter and sugar coating. DELICIOUS!!
I’m honestly in tears, my Oma used to make this for me when I was little but she wouldn’t give me the recipe! Thank you so much for posting this, I’ll be making some for my roommates who are from China!
This is MY Grandmother’s recipe too–Austrian also— and one of my all time favorite desserts.We always serve with whipped cream–mit schlag. Jamon
I learned how to make these from my husbands “Oma”. She never wrote down the exact measurements of her ingredients so I came on allrecipes.com to try and find a plum dumpling recipe. I must say your recipe is a bit more delicious! Perfect…thanks for sharing!
If you didn’t grow up eating these or did not have a wonderful experience in Europe with this type of dumpling, it’s not likely you will think these are anything special. I love to cook and I don’t mind things that take time or special techniques, but there is still a “worth it” rating and these just do not live up. They were A LOT of work and A LOT of clean-up and they were bland. It’s not something to make if you don’t have a cultural connection to it. Make some apple dumplings or turnovers instead. They taste better and are much less hassle.
In Austria you can now buy these in the frozen food section, but homemade is always best. I’ve made some very time consuming dishes, but this one tops the list both in terms of work and clean-up. The results, however, are well worth it because it brings back so many memories of our time in Austria. Some suggestions/changes: 1) Regular plums will not suffice for the Italian prune plums. If you can’t find them, use apricots and make marillenknödel (i.e. apricot dumplings.) Because apricots are larger, just put half of an apricot into each dumpling so that it will cook properly. 2) I peel the potatoes first and cut into quarters to speed up the boiling time. 3) You need a potato ricer. If you just mash the potatoes, the consistency will not be correct. You can buy one for under $10 at places like Bed, Bath & Beyond. 4) Regular, plain breadcrumbs. Not seasoned. Not panko. 5) The recipe is sweet – kids love it – so we’re not a big fan of the sugar cube in the middle. Instead, sprinkle a little powdered sugar for the garnish. 6) Regarding farina, it is a wheat “cereal,” so look for it in the oatmeal section and not the baking aisle with the flour. Some regular grocery stores carry it, but a natural food store is a better bet. You can buy a box at Trader Joe’s for $2.99 (although, the big question is what to cook with the rest!) This is a truly authentic recipe that turns out just as good as the original in Austria. Thank you!
I found your recipe just after we finished making a batch. We do it exactly the same. My grandmother was from Hungary and was a great cook. She taught me. The only thing I did differently was I made the bread crumbs from Pascha bread from yesterday. This was my labor of love for my family. I am gluten intolerant and can’t eat them.
I grew up with my German mother making plum dumplings. I could not find her recipe, so I tried this one. My family loved them. Just like mom used to make. We don’t use the sugar cubes in the plums to leave the plums a bit on the tart side. I did have to use a lot more flour to get rid of the tackiness of the dough. I used about 3 to 4 cups of flour total. We don’t do the breadcrumb mixture at the end either. We do melted butter and powdered sugar on top. Thanks for the recipe.
Really good flavor but it was way too time consuming overall. Had problems with the dough being tacky and must have added an additional 2 cups of flour. Perhaps it was from kneading so much flour into the dough, but the final product was like eating a very thick pasta and somewhat gummy after boiling it. I think a better option for plums would be to make a pie with a crumble topping and get a comparable dessert and much quicker to put together. I´m glad to have tried it though.
I was so surprised to see this recipe here. My Austrian Mother in law made these. She also made the meat variety on the same day with mincemeat and served in/on sourkraut. NOTE TO PREVIOUS POSTER ….My mother would take the knoedel after rolling in the crumbs..she would then toast the knoedel i the oven on very low for 15 mins or so. I think the crumbs stuck. Thanks for the recipe and the reminder of the love that was used to make this.
my husband’s Austrian grandmother made these , we all thought we would never eat them again , when I found this recipe I made them and everyone said they were authentic and as good as what we remembered , we loved them they are also good made with apricots. Instead of a sugar cube I put 1/2 tsp sugar
Wow. Just like my Austro-Croat Aunt. Fairly bullet proof. If anyone knows a trick to get the struesel to stick better, let me know. Best to get dark plums, slightly overripe and pruning.
Awesome. Unfortunately at the time I wanted to try this, plums were out of season, so I improvised. I used cherries instead of plums and made lots and lots of little dumplings. I couldn’t find sugar cubes at the store, so I replaced the cherry pits with red and purple skittles, which adds its own kind of flavor. So, SO good. The cherry-sized dumplings are perfectly bite-sized, too.