Poppy Seed Cake !


My yoga teacher yesterday presented me with a yoga belt and very sweetly mentioned it was a gift in return for the chocolates I once offered him. So I offered to bake him a cake, something that he can’t easily buy of a bakery store in India. A couple of weeks back I found Deborah Madison’s recipe for a Poppy Seed Cake from her book ‘Vegetarian cooking for everyone’. I was waiting for the right occasion to try it. Today I am back home at 4 pm and what better thing do I have to do then be in my kitchen. With the Bombay rains tapping on my window, today seems perfect.

So how should I describe my new experiment? Lets put it this way - this cake is so so yummy ! Perfectly moist. Just a little crunchy and not so sweet.

The original recipe uses black poppy seeds, I didn’t have enough in stock at home and couldn’t find it at my neighborhood grocery store, so I just used a mix of black and white poppy seeds (posto, the one we use in BengaIi food) I had handy, and for the buttermilk I substituted it with equal qty of curd that I had leftover from yesterday.

I am going to go and have another piece with my honey lemon Chai and in the meanwhile you try this one out, it is just perfect !!!



Ingredients
  • ·      1 cup poppy seeds
  • ·      ½ cup milk, heated, but not boiling
  • ·      2 cups all purpose flour
  • ·      1 tsp baking powder
  • ·      1 tsp soda bicarb
  • ·      2 eggs separated
  • ·      110 gms of butter
  • ·      1 cup granulated sugar
  • ·      2 tsp vanilla essence
  • ·      1 cup buttermilk
Method
  • ·      Preheat oven at 190 degrees C.
  • ·      Combine the poppy seeds and the hot milk and set aside
  • ·      Separate the eggs, egg white and yolk, whisk the egg whites with electric hand mixture, whisk attachment, till it forms firm white peaks. About three minutes on medium to high setting.
  • ·      In a separate bowl whisk the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy about 3 minutes at medium setting. Add the egg yolks and vanilla essence to the butter and sugar mix and whisk again with paddle attachment for another two minutes.
  • ·      Drain the milk from the poppy seeds, discarding the milk. Add the drained poppy seeds and the buttermilk to the batter. Beat until well combined.
  • ·      To the batter add flour, baking powder and baking soda. And mix well using the paddle attachment at lowest setting until well combined.
  • ·      Into the batter now gently fold in the egg whites using a wooden spatula until well combined.
  • ·      Transfer the batter into a 9” round cake tin or 10” bundt cake tin like the one I used.
  • ·      Bake for 50 minutes.
  • ·      Leave the cake in the mould for about 10 minutes, then take it out and leave to cool on a rack before slicing it.




Comments

  1. Venu18 July 2012 at 00:09

    Made my husbands day great recipe
    Pl post some more sweet nothings!

    ReplyDelete

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