Quark cake with plums

My great aunt Erna was born in Silesia – what was then part of Germany. After the Second World War that region was added to Poland.  She made an excellent quark cake with crumble – creamy, light and crispy at the same time. Erna passed away a few years ago – however, her handwritten recipe is still with us. To her original recipe I added ripe, sweet Swiss plums – what a sweet temptation!

What is Quark?
Dictionaries sometimes translate it as curd cheese, cottage cheese, farmer cheese or junket. In Switzerland, quark and cottage cheese are different types of fresh cheese. Quark is of creamy consistency, whereas cottage cheese comes in little lumps of cheese.
Quark is similar to French fromage blanc, Indian paneer, and the queso fresco/queijo fresco made in the Iberian Peninsula and in some Latin American countries. It is distinct from Italian ricotta because ricotta is made from scalded whey.
Quark is somewhat similar to yoghurt cheeses such as the South Asian chaka, the Arabic labneh, and the Central Asian suzma or kashk, but while these products are obtained by straining yoghurt, quark is made from soured milk fermented with mesophile bacteria.