The Long and Winding Road to Zweschgenschnecken

Zweschgenschnecken is German cinnamon plum rolls. They were my fun experiment last week. As soon as I found the recipe I knew I had to make them. The recipe, however, called for plum butter, which was not something I already had on hand. Maybe this is where most people would go out and buy some. But I figured with plums in season right here I might as well make it another canning project. Thus began my three day quest to plum rolls.

On day one, I climbed a tree and picked some beautiful Italian prune plums. The things were huge; the bigger ones weighed a quarter pound a piece.

On day two, I made them into plum butter. Big excitement- the plums were completely free-stone (they pulled away from the pit without any flesh clinging on)! Usually I see free-stone peaches and nectarines, but I'd never encountered this quality in a plum before. I didn't even have to use a knife, they ripped in half just about effortlessly.

I also used real vanilla beans for the first time ever! At 77 cents a pod at the co-op they couldn't be beat. I hadn't realized that the actual beans are so little, like teeny tiny vanilla caviar.

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• Used this recipe for plum butter from epicurious.com, but I made the following adjustments: Upped the vanilla to two beans so the flavor didn't get entirely masked by the plums, and used my favorite Pomona's Universal Pectin which allowed me to go down to 3/4 cup sugar.

With my changes, the recipe was:

• 2 vanilla beans, halved lengthwise
• 4 lb ripe plums, cut into 1/2-inch wedges
• 3t pectin powder and 4t calcium water (you make it up from additional powder that comes with the Pomona's pectin)
• 3/4 cup sugar
• 1/4 cup lemon juice

On day three, after two days of prep work, I was plum ready to roll. Recipe is here.

I used melted margarine instead of vegetable oil.

Anyone know a better way to measure cream cheese? This worked, just wondrin'.

Used Bob's Red Mill Gluten Free flour mix so Whitney could still eat them despite her wheat allergy.

20-inch square? It was better not having a ruler around because I probably would have measured it. That was as close to a square as it was gonna get.

More free-stone loveliness.

I toasted pecans instead of almonds because I already had them and it sounded like it would be better anyway.

The plum butter was absolutely gorgeous and the vanilla flavor, though still subtle, was significantly stronger after a day's worth of chilling. I was so glad I made my own, it made the whole thing that much more satisfying.

Plum pizza pie!

At this point I had to take a moment to compose myself before attempting to roll up the giant monster. I'll admit, I was a little bit nervous. I wish I had had wax paper to have rolled it out on, but I didn't and the aluminum foil that I substituted got a little stuck a few times.

But I did it!

So much goop. I didn't take pictures of these things on the pan before baking for a reason. Specifically, it was a mess.

But when they came out of the oven...

So beautiful! With a little extra plum butter on the side for dipping, they were just the German comfort food I'd hoped they'd be. The toasted pecans were show-stopping. The challenge was all worth it, though I imagine the whole rolling up thing will only get easier with more practice.