Plum cake fruit in these open tarts or flans is cut into suitably sized pieces and the cake is glazed: red glaze is recommended for red plum and rhubarb flans, whereas apricot glaze is recommended in yellow plum and apricot flans. The German plum cake, known as "Zwetschkenkuchen", can be found all over the country, although its home is Bavaria. In chef Robert Carrier's recipe for it, the base is made from yeast pastry rather than often used shortcrust pastry, because the yeast pastry "soaks up the juice form the plums without becoming soggy". In Italy, plum cake is known by the
Plum cake currants were used, which in the English language were referred to as plums since around 1660. The various types of dried fruit (grapes, currants and raisins) were familiar to English kitchens through trade with The Levant and Mediterranean but before they became available through "trouble-free" imports from Australia, South Africa and California, preparing them required "an immense amount of labour ... on account of the rough and ready methods by which the fruit was picked, dried, packed and exported". In 1881 Colonel Henry-Herbert said that "a good English plum cake...is a national institution". At times, Thomas Carlyle was one among