Kuchen Festival in Delmont, SD
September 12th – 13th, 2020
Craft booths • Quilt and Fabric Arts Show • Art Show and Sale • Pumphouse Museum and City Jail and The Onion House across the street • Lunch • Kuchen by the pan and slice
Kuchen is a German or German-Russian pastry. It is made from sweet dough, a custard sauce, and fruit. My mother taught me how to make kuchen after I was married. I use my 4-H dough recipe.
The Kuchen Festival began in October 1997 as a bake sale on Sunday morning for the Delmont Historical Society. That year I made 10 or so. They sold quickly. The next year we decided to have another Bake Sale but the Historical Society would make kuchens and ask for other baked donations from the Delmont community. We made about 30. The following year volunteers for the Historical Society made about 100 and added craft booths and a soup kitchen. We sold out within 90 minutes. Now the Kuchen Festival is the second weekend in September. This our 24th year is on September 12th, 2020. In 2017, we made 1165. We are planning to make about the same amount for 2020. In 2014 we made 1500 – the most we have ever made.
Each year we travel to the Tyndall bakery and volunteers and bakery help put together 9 patches of kuchen. The bakery’s oven can bake 120 kuchen at one time. We begin about 7:00 a.m. and usually are on our way home by 3:00 p.m.
The custard sauce requires 77 gallons of cream and milk for the sauce 89 dozen eggs for the sauce 184 lbs. of sugar and 25 lbs. of flour for thickener
One batch of dough at the bakery requires 30 lbs. flour 1 gallon of milk, 12 cups water, 14 sticks of margarine, 7 oz. of yeast, 9 tablespoons of salt, and 42 eggs. Now multiply those ingredients by 9, the total batches we make at the Tyndall bakery.
We usually make 13 varieties of kuchen. Fruit: apple, peaches, apricot, prunes cherry, blueberry, rhubarb, and mulberry. We also make some cottage cheese and poppy seed, coconut, and custard kuchen.
The bake sales and Kuchen Festival began and continue to support the restoration of the Pumphouse Museum and the Onion House.
