While I was making Hamantaschen last weekend poppy seeds came to my mind. I do not why but somehow I associate poppy seeds with Jewish cuisine. I think there are many traditional Jewish pastries that include poppy seeds. One Jewish pastry that is on the top of my to-do list is Flodni which I want to make this coming weekend. Flodni is a typical Hungarian Jewish pastry that consists of layers of poppy seeds, walnut, apple and plum jam. I ate this delicacy several times during my visits to Budapest and it is real treat.
After I posted my recipe of the Orange Bundt Cake, my friend surprised me the other day and gifted me with four mini Bundt pans. As you can imagine I wanted to make some special cake to inaugurate my new mini Bundt pans. When the poppy seeds came to my mind last weekend I knew that I wanted to make a poppy seed Bundt cake.
While making the cake batter and when I filled the cake batter into the mini Bundt pans I must admit that I was very skeptical if a poppy seed cake were a good idea to inaugurate my new mini pans. I tried a little bit of the cake batter and I was not thrilled about the taste and I thought there were too much poppy seeds in the batter. I had a sad moment and I try to cheer me up and I told myself that it took me only 10 minutes to prepare this cake batter.
But I was very, very wrong. The cake result is amazing and the poppy seeds are not overwhelming. This cake is so delicious and the smell of this poppy seed cake is heavenly.




Makes eight mini Bundt Cakes (12 cm diameter)
Or one big Bundt Cake (26 cm diameter)

INGREDIENTS

  • 200 g unsalted butter, soft
  • 150 g powdered sugar
  • 4 eggs, medium size
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla sugar or vanilla extract
  • Zest of ½ untreated/organic lemon
  • 250 g pastry flour
  • 2 teaspoons baking powder
  • 1 pinch of salt
  • 150 g ground poppy seeds
  • 125 ml milk
  • 2 tablespoons brown rum 

DIRECTIONS

  • Preheat the oven to 175 °C.
  • Grease and flour one big bundt pan or eight mini bundt pans.
  • Whisk the butter and powdered sugar until it is creamy. Add one egg at a time and mix until everything is well combined. Add the lemon zest and vanilla sugar or vanilla extract.
  • Combine flour, baking powder, salt and poppy seeds in a small bowl.
  • Add the flour mixture, milk and brown rum to the batter and mix until everything is well cooperated.
  • Fill the batter into the bundt pans.
  • If you use mini Bundt pans bake for 20 minutes. If you use a big bundt pan bake for 50 minutes.
  • Let the cake or cakes cool completely. Remove from cake pan and dust with powdered sugar.
The recipe is adapted from "Das Kaffeehaus" by Rick Rodgers.