Grandma’s Apple Dessert Recipe or “Platz”

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.

Recipe

Grandma's Apple Platz - an apple dessert recipe

3.50 from 2 votes

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Serves: 12 -16

Prep: 20 minutes

Cook: 30 minutes

Total: 50 minutes

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:

* You will have leftover dough. I tried to get the recipe to be the perfect amount but Grandma said it was too hard to get the proportions right. You will use a little over 1/2 - 3/4 of the crust dough. Grandma recommends freezing the rest and making another smaller platz 🙂

** We used about 1 3/4 cup flour. Start with 1 1/2 and see how your crumbs feel. They should not form one big ball, but should be slightly dry and be easy to crumble.

Nutrition Disclaimer

Recipes written and produced on Food Faith Fitness are for informational purposes only.

Author: Taylor

Course:Dessert

Cuisine:German

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