- Yield: 12 servings
- Prep Time: 6h 00 min
- Cook Time: 45 minutes
- Serving: For Family
Braided Poppy Seed Strudel
I adore poppy seeds cakes! This poppy seed strudel is made with a yeast dough and white poppy seed feeling and... it's pretty swirled. Poppy seed strudel is traditional in parts of Eastern and Central Europe and also Israel. The recipe can vary slightly with ingredients in the dough or rum, raisins, walnuts or spices in the filling. The dough for this cake is very, very soft and great to go with coffee. Happy Baking!
Ingredients
- Makes 2 Loaves
- dried yeast - 10g
- milk - 50ml (lukewarm)
- caster sugar - 100g
- plain white flour - 200g (plus extra for dusting)
- egg yolks - 4
- unsalted butter - 50g
- vanilla extract - ½ teaspoon
- Filing
- white poppy seeds - 300g
- caster sugar - 200g
- honey - 100g
- eggs - 3
- unsalted butter - 40g
- raisins - 40g (chopped)
- walnuts - 30g (chopped)
- ground almonds - 50g
- candied orange peel - 50g
- cakes - 100g crushed (cookies, muffins, etc. - without cream and fruit, can be with nuts and raisins)
- Glaze
- hot water - 3 tablespoons
- icing sugar - 100g
- lemon juice - 2 tablespoons
- almond flakes - for garnish (chopped)
Instructions
- To make the filling – one day earlier: Place white poppy seeds in a large bowl and pour boiling water over to soften for 40 minutes. Drain poppies through a cheesecloth covered net sieve. Grind three times poppy seeds using grinder. In a pan, heat 80g of butter, honey and sugar.
Add raisins and candied orange peel, than cook for around 5 minutes on medium-high heat. Add ground almond and poppy seeds, than cook for around 10 minutes stirring gently. Cool to room temperature and add crushed cakes. Add the eggs – one egg at a time and mix gently. - Put the dried yeast and a pinch of sugar into a bowl, add lukewarm milk and mix well.
- Cover with a clean cloth and let it grow in a warm place (the temperature will speed up the growth process). When the yeast mixture has doubled its volume, is ready to prepare yeast dough.
- Meanwhile, beat the eggs with sugar in the bowl. Melt the butter and cool slightly.
- Put the flour and yeast mixture and vanilla extract into a bowl and mix well to form a dough. Gradually add melted butter.
- Knead for 10 minutes or until the dough is smooth and elastic.
- Cover with a clean cloth and let it rest. Leave the dough in warm place for 1 hour, until doubled.
- Transfer the dough to a lightly floured surface. Divide dough in two halves and shape each into a rectangle using a rolling pin into about 2cm. Spread with filling evenly over the dough, leaving 1cm border. Roll the dough up, turning ends under so filling will not leak out. Repeat with remaining dough.
- Rotate cut sides to expose cut edges of layers and then lay one half over the other to make twist. You can invert the uncut end to expose the filling. Pinch ends together and transfer to backing trays lined with baking parchment.
- Cover with a clean cloth and let it rise for 15 minutes in a warm place.
- Preheat the oven to 180°C. Bake 45 minutes. The poppy seed strudels are ready when golden brown.
- Once it’s done, remove from the oven and place on a wire rack and spread the icing. Leave to cool.
