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Plum & Grape Hencleș (Transylvanian Cake)

Hencleș (Hanklich) is a dessert with German origins prepared in many Transylvanian households with sweet leavened dough, fruit (apples, plums, grapes, cherries), and an egg and cream crust.

Prep Time
15 mins
Cook Time
15 mins
Additional Time
1 hr
Total Time
1 hr 45 mins
Servings: 20 pieces
Course: Dessert , Cake
Cuisine: Romanian

Ingredients

The dough:
  • 150 ml milk
  • 4 g dry yeast
  • 350 g flour
  • 50 ml oil
  • 1 egg
  • 70 g sugar
  • ½ tsp salt
  • 1 tsp vanilla essence
  • 1 tsp lemon zest
The semolina cream:
  • 5 eggs
  • 150 g heavy cream
  • 100 g sugar
  • 50 g semolina
  • 1 tsp vanilla essence
  • 10-12 large pitted plums cut into quarters
  • black grapes

Instructions

For the dough:
    Cup of Yum
  1. Warm the milk (37° C/100° F) and dissolve the yeast.
  2. Add the flour and the rest of the ingredients and knead by hand (or with the dough hook of a planetary mixer - a crucial gadget for dough!) until you get a stretchy dough.
  3. Let the dough rise for an hour or until it doubles in volume.
  4. Roll the dough into a rectangle 0.7-1cm (~1/3 of an inch) thick and place in a tray lined with parchment paper. Place the fruit on top of the dough.
For the semolina cream:
  1. Whip the eggs and cream. Add the sugar and vanilla essence, and, finally, gradually add the semolina. Homogenize and pour the composition over the fruit.
  2. Bake in a preheated oven at 180°C/356° C for 30-35 minutes.
  3. After baking, if you are patient😋, let the hencleș cool, then slice, and sprinkle with powdered sugar.

Notes

  • The ingredients provided are sufficient for a 30 x 40 cm (12 x 16-inch) pan. The pan shown in the pictures is smaller because I baked two trays of Hencleș.
  • The dough rises perfectly in a bowl greased with some oil and covered with (don't laugh!) a disposable shower cap (don't throw it away when you get it at the hotel in your cosmetic kit! It will make a difference, I promise!).