Ukranian Poppy Seed Cake

Submitted by justcallmetoni

"This was a graduate school favorite that I recently dug out of a very old box of recipe clips. I have no idea where the recipe originated but have fond memories of sitting with my housemates in the kitchen eating hot slabs of this cake right out of the oven."

 

• Ready In: 1hr 10mins
• Ingredients: 10
• Yields: 2 loaves
• Serves: 24

ingredients

• 3⁄4 cup poppy seed
• 1 cup milk
• 1⁄2 lb butter
• 1 1⁄3 cups sugar
• 3 eggs
• 2 cups unbleached flour
• 1 tablespoon baking powder
• 1⁄2 teaspoon salt
• 1⁄2 teaspoon vanilla
• 1 teaspoon lemon zest

directions

1. Heat poppyseeds and milk in a small saucepan over medium heat. Remove from heat just before milk begins to boil. Let stand until milk reaches room temperature.
2. Preheat over to 350 degrees.
3. Cream together the butter and sugar. Add eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition.
4. Sift together the dry ingredients (flour, baking powder and salt).
5. AIn thirds, alternately beat into the butter and sugar the dry ingredients and milk. Add the vanilla and lemon zest at the end.
6. Lightly butter 2 loaf pans and split batter between pans. Bake 40-50 minutes until a toothpick or knife inserted comes out clean.

Reviews

[Helgaf]

This is delicious. Added a little more milk since Kaarin said it was a little dry and the extra milk made the cake perfect. Thanks for sharing. ;-))

 

[Tina and Dave]

A wonderful cake! We didn't know what to expect as we've never had poppyseed cake before! I did add some chopped toasted hazelnuts as I only had 1/4 cup of seeds. I made one big cake (see photo) which took about 55 mins to bake. Was supposed to be taking this to my parents but have already started eating it as the smell was divine! Thanks for a great recipe!

 

[Kaarin]

I love the tons of poppy seeds in this, and lemon zest was a great addition! For some reason mine was on the dry side; difficult to cut without the edges crumbling. (Possibly my eggs were too small?) The batter seemed fine, and the cake still tastes really good. I topped with raspberry toffee sauce #142631. I'm going to try freezing the second loaf. Thanks for sharing!

 

[Anonymous]

The original Molly Katzen recipe calls for separating the eggs. Beating the egg whites and adding them into the batter. I think that creates a lighter moister cake.

 

[Lydia S.]

Too dry falls apart! Very disappointed, will make a bread pudding out of it!