No short-changing on the poppyseeds here -- tender and moist and peppery
I have spent years avoiding poppyseed cake due to a deep psychological reason we’ll call guilt/avoidance (my fingers are steepled). One of my earliest freelance food jobs in San Francisco was baking poppyseed cakes for a nearby coffeehouse/used book store on Chestnut Street. This was a job I inherited from one “Donna,” and my instructions were specific and firm — the cake was to be baked from a Duncan-Hines lemon pound cake mix with some poppyseeds thrown in. When I inherited this job (along with the bundt pan, which I still have!) I grumbled a little about the recipe, suggesting that maybe I could hunt up a better one that didn’t involve a store-bought mix, mumble mumble, used real butter, mumble mumble. No! The coffeehouse wanted this cake, and I was not to meddle. Anyway, she was resuming the job after a couple of months, and I would only complicate her life by changing the recipe.
I delivered the cakes twice a week, got my…$7?…upon delivery, but I knew they weren’t really very good. Making all those cakes put me right off poppyseed cake, and the few times I’ve ordered it since have been disappointing. It’s always yellowy (a mix?), synthetically lemony, and too sweet. Ah, but then I discovered this cake. It is dense with poppyseeds and there is no lemon flavor at all. I considered adding almond extract, which I may still do a few recipes down the road, but at this moment the cake is perfect as is.
I stumbled across this recipe last week in the New York Times in an article about the Strawbery Banke Museum (there is no additional “r”), a living outdoor museum in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. Okay, I’m a sucker for living museums, historical reenactment, Old Sturbridge Village, women in period costume spinning yarn or bearded men running old printing presses. There was a beautiful Shaker town in Kentucky that I visited every summer with my grandmother, though I suppose it could have been the Inn’s puffy rolls, country ham and chess pie that really galvanized my attraction to historically accurate old villages.
Strawbery Banke, an early settlement in the Puddle Dock neighborhood of Portsmouth, was a destination for immigrants during the 18th and 19th centuries, and by the early 1900s was one quarter Jewish. The NYT article, timed to coincide with Rosh Hashana, offered this poppyseed cake recipe (with alterations in the dairy content) from one of the recreated Jewish households. I don’t know what caught my eye, but I tried the recipe and I can say I’m officially over my psychological disorder.
Truthfully, I recommend it for whatever ails you. Could it be the poppyseeds? My research tells me there aren’t enough alkanoids to produce an “effect,” but don’t serve this cake to a pal who has to take a drug test within 48 hours. And I swear I’ve been feeling great…
You need a goodly amount of seeds, so a little spice jar full won't cut it
Your grocery store may have poppyseeds in large enough quantity (you need one cup for the recipe) but my local supermarket didn’t have more than a spice jar full, which was overpriced at that. I’m fortunate to have a Middle Eastern market near me, and of course they had bags of poppyseeds. Any store that carries bulk spices or ethnic foods is bound to have them.
Strawbery Banke Poppyseed Cake
Adapted from the New York Times’ adaptation of the Strawbery Banke Museum’s recipe (got all that?)
1 cup poppyseeds
1 cup milk
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened, plus 1 tablespoon for buttering the pan
2 cups sugar
3 large eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla
2 cups unbleached flour, plus 1 tablespoon for flouring the pan
2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
Confectioner’s sugar
Combine the poppyseeds and milk in a small saucepan. Bring just to a boil, stir, and remove from heat. Let cool while you prepare the other ingredients, or about 20 minutes.
It's a thick, strange combination, but the milk softens the seeds
Preheat the oven to 350°F. Thoroughly butter and lightly flour a bundt or tube pan.
My beat up bundt pan still serves me well -- make sure you've buttered every nook and cranny
Shake and tap the pan to get flour on all the surfaces, including the center tube
Dab any bare spots with butter and add a little flour -- tap out the excess when the pan is well-coated
With an electric mixer, cream the softened butter with the sugar. Separate the three eggs, putting the whites in a large bowl. Set aside the whites.
Crack the egg on the countertop for an even break
Add the yolks and vanilla to the butter mixture and beat until smooth.
I use a hand-held electric mixer for small jobs like this
Add the cooled poppyseed/milk mixture and combine well.
You'll need to scrape out the seeds
It makes a very seedy batter
Add the flour, baking powder and salt and mix well. Do not overbeat.
Whip the egg whites with a whisk or beater until stiff peaks form.
Any yolk in the whites will prevent them from frothing correctly
Stiff peaks but no farther -- you don't want the whites to get dry and begin to break down
Gently stir 1/3 of the whites into the batter.
This "lightens up" the batter, making it easier to fold in the remaining whites
Dump the remaining whites into the center of the batter and fold them in, folding from the center to the outside and turning the bowl as you go. I use a rubber spatula for this task, and keep it flat against the batter. It’s really not like stirring — it’s a gentle turning motion, since you want to avoid deflating the “bubbles” of the egg whites.
This is the standard technique for folding -- 1/3 of the whites lighten the batter, the remaining 2/3 are folded in working from the center out and turning the bowl for each fold
Pour the batter into the prepared pan.
The egg whites give the cake its light texture
Bake in the preheated oven for 45 minutes, or until a skewer or cake tester comes out clean.
Cool the cake in the pan for 10 minutes, then invert onto a wire rack and cool until ready to serve.
The upside of a well-prepared pan is no chunks or divits removed. The downside is no little "samples" left behind on the pan
Sprinkle with confectioner’s sugar before serving.
I have a fine strainer that I like to use for sugar sprinkling
Okay, I just thought both these pictures were cool, with the falling sugar, etc.
This cake goes really well with a good cuppa English tea
