Orange poppy seed cake

A quick and easy orange-flavoured poppy seed cake filled with dried fruit and nuts. This orange poppy seed cake requires no pre-soaking of the poppy seeds. Finished with a sweet orange glaze and decorated with candied orange peel, it’s well worth testing before the holidays arrive :).

Note: This recipe uses dry ground poppy seeds — there is no need to soak them beforehand. Ready-ground dry poppy seeds are widely available in many shops, or you can grind dry poppy seeds yourself in a coffee grinder and use them directly in the recipe.

Ingredients for the orange poppy seed cake:

• 2 large eggs
• 220 g caster sugar
• 80 g butter, melted and slightly cooled
• 150 g ground poppy seeds (dry)
• 70 g ground almonds
• 80 g plain flour
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 200 g sour cream
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract or orange juice
• finely grated zest of 1 orange
• 100 g raisins
• 50 g walnuts or pecans, chopped
• 100 g candied orange peel

All ingredients should be at room temperature. Sift the flour together with the baking powder and set aside.

In the bowl of a mixer, beat the eggs and sugar until pale, light and fluffy. Slowly pour in the cooled melted butter while mixing continuously. Remove the bowl from the mixer and add, one by one: the dry ground poppy seeds, sifted flour with baking powder, ground almonds, sour cream, vanilla extract and orange zest. Fold gently with a spatula only until combined. Add the dried fruit and nuts (the last three ingredients) and mix gently.

Pour the batter into a 25 cm round cake tin lined with baking paper on the bottom only. Smooth the surface.

Bake at 160–170°C for about 40 minutes, or until a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean.

Remove from the oven, cool completely and drizzle with orange glaze. Decorate with additional candied orange peel.

Ingredients for orange glaze:

• 1 cup icing sugar
• 3 tablespoons freshly squeezed orange juice

Mix the icing sugar and orange juice together using the back of a spoon or a mixer until smooth. Adjust the consistency as needed: if the glaze is too thick, add a little more orange juice, if too thin, add more icing sugar and mix thoroughly.

Enjoy!