Grandma’s Apple Dessert Recipe, known as Platz, is a super simple and easy German, dessert that is straight from Grandmas Kitchen. It’s sweet, buttery and delicious! You can even change it up to use whatever fruit you have on hand.
You want to know what always befuzzles me?
Why you Americans call the shoes that you are active in “sneakers”. YOU DON’T SNEAK IN THEM.
In Canada, we call them “runners.” You run in them. It makes sense. Sneakers doesn’t.
Unless you’re training to be a ninja. Then “sneakers” is acceptable.
I actually didn’t even mean to talk about runners and sneakers. It just kind of…happened. Like a lot of things I write about.
I was actually going to talk about the befuzzling fact that anything baked by a Grandma is always magically delicious!
A Lucky Charms commercial just came on TV…if you didn’t guess. It’s also almost St. Patricks day. So, there’s that.
Anyway.
Grandma baking. How do they do it? They make the best healthy ginger snaps, the best gluten free shortbread cookies, the best EVERYTHING. Do you learn the secrets once you reach G-ma hood? Is it something that was only taught back in zee Old Country where they had to walk up hill to school, both ways, WITH NO SHOES?
If it’s the former…I am rethinking the whole waiting for little FFF’s…so I can speed up the unlock-age of the baking secrets. If it’s the last? Um. I’m inventing a time machine? Look for the how-to on the blog soon! Except don’t. I can’t even divide numbers anymore. A time machine? Ya. Not happening. Ever.
If you remember, a couple weeks back, I made some Chicken Zoodle Soup in honour of my Grandma being here from Canada to visit for a week! She actually brought me this SUPER OLD cookbook filled with all these ah-may-zing German/Mennonite (my background) recipes of all the food that I grew up eating, but didn’t know how to make. You may or may not be seeing these recipes appear in the future.
OOooOoo foreshadowing.
One of the days that my G-ma was here, we had a good ol’ baking day – just like we used to when I was a wee little tyke. It was SO hard to choose which recipe to expose you guys to first because, well, Germans? They make GOOD FOOD. How-ev-er, I decided that I wanted to show you guys the dessert that is at EVERY single family function that I have ever attended in my 23 years of life on this earth; Platz.
Quick pronounciation lesson. It’s pl-aww-ts. Like “awww, what what a cute puppy!” Not pl-ahhh-tz like “ahhh, that’s one big dog and it’s going to bite me if I pet it!” Do you feel knowledgeable now?
The beauty of this recipe is that it is insanely easy AND customizable. Don’t like apples? Throw in another kind of fruit! For our family gatherings, Grandma always made half plum platz and half rhubarb. Yumyumyum.
You can also use entirely all purpose flour, as that is how grandma always made it…but I had to give it a LITTLE “Taylor-i-fying” and we used half all purpose and half whole wheat pastry flour. It tastes JUST as good half/half as entirely all purpose, in my opinion! It’s still buttery and crunchy and sweet and….my childhood in a 9×13.
I bet you even have all the ingredients in your pantry.
So why are you still reading?
Try something new. Eat platz. Love platz. And then be excited because you’ll be getting alllll of the good, German recipes coming to a blog near you.
So, this blog.
P.s My Grandma? She’s adorbs.

Ingredients
- For the Crust:
- 1 Cup Whole wheat pastry flour
- 1 Cup All purpose flour
- 1/2 tsp Salt
- 4 tsp Baking powder
- 1/4 cup Sugar
- 1 egg
- 1/4 cup + 2 Tbsp Milk we used 1%
- 4 Tbsp Butter at room temperature
- For the topping:
- 2 Small apples
- 1/2 cup Sugar
- 3/4 Cup All purpose flour
- 3/4 -1 Cup Whole wheat pastry flour
- 1/2 Cup Butter at room temperature
Instructions
- Begin by making the crust:
- Preheat your oven to 375 degrees. Spray a 9x13 inch pan with cooking spray and set aside.
- Into a large bowl, sift together the dry ingredients.
- Rub in the butter until you have fine crumbs.
- In a separate measuring cup, measure the milk and then beat the egg into the milk.
- Stir the egg/milk mixture into the flour mixture and mix until well combined and a dough forms.
- Roll the dough out on a floured counter top to fit the 9x13 pan, and place into the prepared pan, pressing the dough around the pan to make an edge. *
- Slice each apple into 16 chunks (quarter it, and slice each quarter into 4) and spread evenly over top of the crust. Set aside.
- Make the crumbs:
- Mix together the sugar and flour and then rub in the butter to make coarse crumbs. **
- Sprinkle the crumbs evenly over the apples and then bake for 25-30 minutes, or until the top is golden brown and crunchy.
- Devour!
Tips & Notes:
Recipes written and produced on Food Faith Fitness are for informational purposes only.
IF YOU MAKE THIS RECIPE, PLEASE REMEMBER TO TAG @FOODFAITHFIT AND #FOODFAITHFITNESS ON INSTRAGRAM! I LOVE SEEING YOUR RECIPE RECREATIONS! 🙂
STAY IN DA KNOW (AND GET SPECIAL BEHIND-THE-SCENES INFO) BY FOLLOWING ALONG WITH FFF ON PINTEREST, FACEBOOK, AND TWITTER!
This post may contain affiliate links, but I only recommend products that I actually use and <3. Thanks for supporting FFF!
Christin@SpicySouthernKitchen says
Your grandmother is so adorable! You must have the best time in the kitchen with her. Grandma recipes are the best because they are made with love 🙂
Tate says
Exactly! You can taste the heart and soul baked right in 🙂
Chelsea @chelseasmessyapron says
Your grandma is totally adorable! Also never thought about sneakers haha runners make way more sense! This apple platz sounds great Taylor! Pinned 🙂
Tate says
Right?! So much more sense! Thanks for the pin girl 🙂
Gretchen @ Two Healthy Kitchens says
Your grandma is so cute!! I love that you had a baking day! That is so much fun – and so special!!
Oh – and it’s totally magic. My grandma is the exact same way. She’s 86 years old (and the cutest little thing you ever did see!) and anything she bakes is magically wonderful. Her food just tastes better.
I’ve never tried a pl-awwww-tz. But I super want to. With apples. And then one with berries. YUM! Oh! Peaches! I see a lot of this in my future! 🙂
How about that kuchen recipe also on that page?? Gonna share that one, too???
Taylor Kiser says
86 eh? Wow! It’s totally crazy, I don’t know how they do it! I hope one day I have that gift!
Oh man…berry or peach platz would be divine!!
Haha…maybe one day girlfriend 😉
Paula says
I am from USA too and i have heard them called sneakers and gym shoes but we always called them tennis shoes too.
Taylor Kiser says
So many names for one thing!
Heidi says
I made this with fresh plums my German friends loved it reminded us of Germany I will make it again this weekend .
Taylor Kiser says
Oh yum! I LOVE plum platz! So glad that you liked it Heidi! 😀
G. Allen says
The word “sneaker” is often attributed to Henry Nelson McKinney, an advertising agent for N. W. Ayer & Son, who, in 1917, coined the term because the rubber sole made the shoe stealthy. The word was already in use at least as early as 1887, as the Boston Journal made reference to “sneakers” as “the name boys give to tennis shoes.” The name “sneakers” originally referred to how quiet the rubber soles were on the ground, in contrast to noisy standard hard leather soled dress shoes. Someone wearing sneakers could “sneak up” on you while someone wearing standards could not.
Taylor Kiser says
Thanks for the info!
Eileen Lubienski says
Wished that you published the nutritional information for your recipes. Is that possible? Maybe I missed it.
Taylor Kiser says
Hi Eileen. I actually have been doing so on all recipes for the past 6 months or so, but unfortunately this is a very old recipe and I don’t have it. Feel free to pop it into something like myfitnesspal.com. Hope that helps!