michelle picker cooks

This is more like a slightly sweet bread than a cake. It’s delicious for breakfast and is actually traditionally eaten as a wedding breakfast amongst the Sorbian people, a Slavic race who number only 60,000 and live in Saxony, Germany. The recipe is adapted from the book Culinaria GERMANY.

To make the dough mix 4 cups of flour with 2¼ teaspoons of dried yeast, ¼ of a cup of sugar, a pinch of salt, 1 egg and 1 cup of lukewarm milk. Butter a baking tray with sides and press the dough into it. Leave it in a warm place to double in size. Preheat the oven to 180ºC (350ºF). In a saucepan add 1 teaspoon of vanilla paste to 4 cups of milk and bring to boil. Remove from the heat and stir in 1 cup of semolina, leaving it to swell. Add 2 cups of ground poppy seeds, mixing well, then allow the mixture to cool. Whisk together ¼ of a cup of sugar, 2 egg yolks and the zest of 1 lemon until creamy then fold this into the cooled poppy seed mixture. Finally beat the remaining 2 egg whites until stiff and carefully fold them through. Spread the mixture over the dough base and bake for 40 minutes.