I’ve been a fan of poppyseed since always. It doesn’t seem to me so long ago when -as a child- I would always stop when passing by a bakery, look at the window for a moment and observe all those pretty arranged buns, sprinkled with cheese, sesame and – poppy seeds, my favorite! Nowadays I don’t stop at bakeries anymore, in fact I haven’t bought bread for about 3 years already, since now I bake my own bread. I still like to sprinkle it with seeds, so much even that Juanpi started calling me a bird!

Back to poppy seeds, I have only baked poppy seed cake once before and it charmed me entirely. I could eat it every day! The best poppy seed cakes are flourless and while on the search for an “upgrade” to my old recipe, I found this one. I adapted it a little bit to my liking and the outcome was just… fantastic. The best poppy seed cake ever!

Ingredients for a round cake pan (18 or 20cm):
60g butter, softened
60g full-fat yogurt, at room temperature
120g blond cane sugar
zest of a lemon, grated
4 eggs, separated
100g almonds, ground
160g poppy seeds
a pinch of salt
5g baking powder
also: butter for the pan
confectioner’s sugar for decoration

1. Start by greasing the cake pan and/or lining it with parchment paper. Preheat the oven at 180ºC.
2. Prepare 3 bowls: mix the softened butter, yogurt, 100g sugar and lemon zest in one bowl. Add the egg yolks and mix until fluffy.
3. In the other bowl combine the ground almonds and poppy seeds.
4. In the 3rd bowl, beat the egg whites with pinch of salt, the remaining sugar and baking powder until glossy.
5. Now add one third of the egg whites to the first (butter-egg yolk) mixture, fold in (very gently) half of the almond-poppy seed mixture, then add another third of egg whites, again the remaining almond-poppy seed and finally, the last third of egg whites.
6. Pour the batter in the cake pan and bake until lightly brown (depending on your oven, it can take from 30-40′ – I had to cover the pan with aluminum foil halfway through baking). Turn the oven off and let the cake inside for another 10′, then transfer it to the cooling rack, unmould and let cool completely.
7. Dust with confectioner’s sugar and serve with a scoop of vanilla ice cream. A perfect slice of cake for your afternoon tea/coffee!