Today’s dose of “poppy joy” 😍 Poppy is a part of traditional Central and Eastern European cuisine. We can also find it in Turkey or India. However, in most parts of the world, poppies are labeled as drugs and are often banned. I will never forget the day when I took a few bags of poppies and hemp seeds to Manila and prayed no one will catch me 🤫😅🙈
For me, the poppy strudel is a nice memory of my childhood. My mother packed it for me as a snack very often. A few pieces of strudel, an apple, and I could go to school🥰. However, the purchased ones cannot be compared with the home-made ones. So let’s do this delicacy on our own 🥖🤗.
Ingredients:
Dough:
- 180 ml lukewarm milk
- 500 g all-purpose flour
- 30 g fresh yeast (from a cube)
- 60 g cane sugar
- 10 g vanilla sugar
- 60 g softened butter
- 1 egg
- 1 tsp salt
- 1 more egg + 1 tbsp. of milk for spreading
Filling:
- 300 g ground poppy
- 450 ml of milk
- 120 g plum jam
- 100 g cane sugar
- juice from 1/2 lemon
Instructions:
- First, we start with the preparation of the dough. Pour the flour into a bowl and make a larger hole in the middle, into which you pour a part of lukewarm milk. Crush the yeast and mix with a little flour from the edge of the created dimple to create a dough similar to pancake dough. Cover the bowl with a cloth and let the yeast rise. Give it about 30 minutes.
- In the meantime, you can prepare the filling. In a saucepan, mix the poppy seeds with milk and cook over low heat until soft. You should have a thick poppy mash. It will take about 10 minutes. Set aside and mix in the sugar, jam, and lemon juice. Let it cool.
- Now add the rest of the lukewarm milk to the flour and risen yeast. Add butter, egg, both sugars, and salt. You can use a robot to knead but I did it manually. After about ten minutes of kneading, you will have a beautifully smooth dough.
- Now place the dough on a rolling pin. Divide it into two buns and let it rise for another 30 minutes under a tea towel.
- Roll out two rectangles measuring 30×30 cm from the buns. Coat each of them with half the filling. Try to spread the filling evenly, but leave one edge of the dough (the wider one) about 2 cm without the filling. Apply a mixture of eggs and milk to this part.
- Carefully wrap the dough so that the smeared edge of the dough closes the strudel. The joint of the strudel must be at the bottom so that the strudel does not open during subsequent leavening and baking. Press the side ends of the strudel inwards.
- Transfer the strudels to a baking sheet and leave to rise for another 40 minutes.
- Preheat the oven to 160°C. Brush the strudels with a mixture of milk and egg and place them in the oven.
- Bake until browned for about 35-40 minutes and let them cool down after removing the strudels from the oven.
