Poppy Seed Cake

Poppy Seed Cake is quite unique in its flavor and a lot like to add it in sponge cake. In Germany we like to eat it as the star of the show. This recipe requires a little bit of your time, but I promise it will be worth it in the end. On top of the cake I decided to add Streusel to add more crunch and sweetness to the cake.

Be aware that this cake looks light, but it actually is quite filling and I recommend not eating it right after lunch or dinner. Eat it with a nice dollop of whipped cream and serve it with some tea or coffee.

Poppy Seed Cake Ingredients

Flour: I use All-Purpose flour for this recipe.

Eggs: Medium sized eggs are a good choice and are mostly there to bind the dough and filling.

Sugar: I only use white sugar for this Poppy Seed Cake and not brown sugar.

Grit/Semolina: Grit or Semolina will give the filling some stability and help keep the cake moist.

Poppy Seed: There is going to be around 200 gram of poppy seeds in this recipe. Did you know there are different types and colors? I use the blue poppy seed type and is the most common one you will find in the store.

Poppy Seed Cake

Print Recipe

A simple, yet delicious poppy seed cake. Cakes are often eaten during visits with guests in Germany and served with coffee or tea. I like to add some whipped cream on top of it.

• Author: Jessica
• Prep Time: 25 minutes
• Cook Time: 50 minutes
• Total Time: 1 hour 15 minutes
• Yield: 12 slices 1x
• Category: European
• Method: Pot+Pan
• Cuisine: German

Ingredients

Units MUS Scale 1x2x3x

Base Dough

• 150 g butter
• 1 egg
• 250g flour
• 150 white sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon salt

Filling

• 750 ml milk
• 200 g blue poppy seeds
• 100 g white sugar
• 100 g semolina/grit
• 2 eggs
• 1/2 teaspoon salt

Streusel

• 150 g flour
• 100 g white sugar
• 1 egg
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 100 g butter

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Instructions

1. This step will be for the base dough. Add your flour, sugar and salt in a bowl and give it a mix. Add cubes of your cold butter into your bowl and crumple the butter with the flour. Roughly combine most off it and add your whisked egg to the mix. Knead your dough lightly until it just comes together. Over mixing the dough will make it dough and not crumbly. Cover it with plastic foil and let it rest in the fridge for 30 minutes.
2. The Streusel is the same step as this dough. Add all your ingredients together, but this one doesn’t need kneading, since we will literally crumble this dough over the filling.
3. Preheat your oven to 180C/350F.
4. The filling is pretty straight forward. In a pot add your milk, sugar, grit/semolina,poppy seed and salt. Bring it to a boil until the filling thickens. For me it took about 10 minutes. Once it thickened let it cool down. (I cooled it over an ice bath to speed up the process) Add your whisked eggs into the cooled mix until everything is combined.
5. Roll out the dough on a floured surface or parchment paper and add it to a greased cake form (29cm/12 inch). Make sure to make a dough border from the base dough to prevent the filling from leaking.
6. Pour your filling to your cake form and crumble up the Streusel dough on top of it.
7. Bake cake for 45-50 min or until the dough is giving a slight wiggle.
8. Let it cool for 2 hours and then serve it with some whipped cream.