Poppy seed cake is my favorite of all cakes. You can just ask any of my family members and they all will tell you the same. Also all of them used to hide it from me. Can you believe it? Now I am big enough 😉 to make my own poppy seed cake and I don’t mind to spend some time in the kitchen to do that. Before you try it on your own you must know that it can be tricky! But the worst that can happen is that the cake will crack at the top, however it still be delicious, so don’t worry! I tried to put instructions as clear as possible, but if you have questions just comment or shoot me an email! I will be glad to reply. I can’t tell you enough how good this cake is. Moist and sweet with the unique poppy seed taste. Just melting in your mouth… och.. too bad I just ate last slice this morning.
Ingredients*:
Dough
- 9.5 teaspoon dry yeast
- 21oz. bread flour +1 teaspoon
- pinch of salt
- 5 egg yolks
- 1 egg
- 1 cup sugar + 1 teaspoon
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 3/4 cup milk + 1/2 cup
- 1 stick + 1 tablespoon butter, melted
Poppy seed filling:
- Â 1 lb poppy seeds
- 2 cups milk
- 2 eggs, separated
- 1 1/2 cup sugar
- 4 tablespoons honey
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Glaze:
- powdered sugar, ~1 cup
- 3-4 tablespoons water or lemon juice
Eggwash:
- mix one egg with 1 tablespoon of half&half
* All ingredients should be at room temperature
Instructions:
- Line 2 16-inch loaf pans with parchment paper.
- In a small bowl: mix yeast with 1 teaspoon of sugar, 1/2 cup of milk and 1 teaspoon of flour. Set aside until ready to use.
- Sift flour, add pinch of salt and set aside.
- In mixer bowl: beat egg yolks, egg, sugar and vanilla until pale yellow and fluffy.
- Add flour and yeast mixture. Mix.
- Add milk (can’t be cold!) and knead with a hook attachment at least 15 minutes.
- After 15 minutes add gradually melted butter and keep kneading until all butter is absorbed and dough is elastic and not sticky. You may need to stop the mixer from time to time and rearrange the dough in the bowl. This part may take some time, 15-20 minutes longer.
- When the dough is ready, cover it with plastic and clean kitchen cloth and set aside in a warm place until it doubles the volume, 1.5-2 hours.
- In the meantime prepare poppy seed filling: in a medium pot mix poppy seeds with milk and cook on low for ~30 minutes.
- After that grind poppy seeds twice (in case you buy pregrounded poppy seeds you may omit this step). Set aside.*
- In a mixer bowl beat egg whites until stiff peaks are achieved. Set aside.
- Beat egg yolks with sugar; add poppy seeds, honey, vanilla and egg whites. Mix well. Set aside until ready to use.
- When the dough is ready, take it out from the bowl and divide in half.
- Roll out each half to 16 inches wide rectangle, about 1/3 thick.
- Spread poppy seed filling evenly, leaving 3/4 inch margins.
- Staring with 16 inch side, roll up the dough as you would a jelly roll. Place seam down and wrap the sides under roll. Transfer to the loaf pan.
- Cover with plastic and let stand in a warm place until ~doubled volume, about 45 minutes.
- Preheat the oven to 210°F.
- Brush top of the cakes with egg wash.
- Bake both cakes at the same time. Bake for 15 minutes in 210°F, then rise the temperature to 355°F and bake for additional 45 minutes.
- Let them cool in the forms. You may cover cakes with glaze if desired.
*You can use food processor OR meat grinder.
Yield:Â 2 16inch loafs, ~16 slices each.
Nutritional Info: Cal 289, Prot 6g, Carb 41g, Fat 11g, Fiber 2g
 
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apetyczny!:)
Dziękuję 🙂
WyglÄ…da naprawdÄ™ smakowicie:)
Pozdrawiam CiÄ™ serdecznie!
Dziękuję i pozdrawiam również 🙂 Zachęcam też do pieczenia! 🙂
I saw this pic on Tastespotting and had to check it out — my grandparents are Hungarian, so I recognize a good beijgli when I see it! Your story made me laugh — my brother recently traveled to Budapest on business and brought me a beijgli from one of our favorite bakeries there. A few days later, I found my two-year-old hiding under the kitchen table with the box, and nothing but crumbs and a huge smile! I’ve never tried to make one myself, but I may just give your recipe a whirl! Thanks for the inspiration — Lovely blog.
Thank you for such lovely comment! I needed something positive today. It is funny – I am still a little bit like your two-year-old, I don’t like sharing the last piece of the cake 😉 Hope you’ll try the recipe and will love the result as much as I do.
What kind of flour? All purpose-Unbleached or bleach, bread, pastry,etc.
Bread flour would work best. Thanks for asking!
Love this recipe! Will be linking back to this in my upcoming post 🙂
Thank you! Glad you like it 🙂
[…] Kneaded Poppy Seed Cake What’s On the Plate […]
came out beautiful! you do the poppy seed filling very different from what i do- very interesting!
Just a bit differently 🙂 Thank you for stopping by!
Hi,
I was wondering where you buy your poppy seeds. The cake looks so delicious I can’t wait to try making it!
Hi Masha! Thanks for taking the time to comment! In Poland poppy seeds can be bought in a regular grocery store but in US it is not the case, and usually if a story carry them it is just a small spice jar. So now I am buying my poppy seeds either from amazon (with subscribe and save) or vitacost.com. Bobs Red Mill Brand is what I usually use. Another option would be to ask in a bakery if they could sell you some. Sometimes they ground poppy seeds. Hope that helps! Let me know if you have any other questions 🙂
Hi there
I am converting the recipe to metric, but am questioning the amount of dry yeast. It would equal 9.5 tsp x 2.8g dry yeast = 27 g of dry active yeast. That for 600g of flour is 4 times the usual amount. Can this be right?
Hope you can help. I love poppy seed cake.
Hi Babette,
Thank you so much for stopping by! Yes, the amount of yeast is correct (it is pretty yeasty cake 😉 ). I double checked with the original recipe – it calls for 70g (~2.5oz) of caked yeast. I did the conversion using this table http://redstaryeast.com/yeast-baking-lessons/yeast-conversion-table/
I’ve been making this cake for years now, it always comes up perfect. If you try with less yeast please let me know how it turned out, I would appreciate it 🙂 ! I could add a note then regarding the amount.
Happy baking! And sorry for my delayed response.
Monika