I have been baking this Lemon Poppy Seed cake for years. It is so simple to make and the addition of lemon curd in the recipe means that it never bakes dry, unlike a number of other pound cakes that I have made. The original recipe, which was given to me by a good friend, more years ago than I would like to remember, didn’t contain poppy seeds. I added poppy seeds to it a couple of years ago, just as an experiment and haven’t looked back since.
To be perfectly honest with you, the first time I added poppy seeds to this cake, I had collected the seeds from the garden. At that time I wasn’t able to buy poppy seeds anywhere on the Island and I just assumed that one poppy seed was much like another but I now don’t believe this to be true. I would always recommend buying poppy seeds from the store, unless of course you really know your stuff. Anyway, I survived totally unscathed from my wild poppy seed eating but I do now buy them locally.
So a little confession 
I had my sister in laws parents coming round for coffee last week so I decided, given that this is such a simple cake to bake, that I would throw one together for them and photograph it quickly before they arrived so that I could put it on Drizzld. Baking the cake wasn’t time consuming at all – you just shove all the ingredients in a bowl, mix them around, place in a tin and bake, voila. The photographing of the cake, however, was a nightmare! Firstly, both camera batteries were as flat as pancakes so needed recharging and by the time that was sorted, the sun was so high in the sky that any chance of using natural light to photograph the cake was well and truly scuppered. It ended with me having to drive down to the local store to pick up a packet of biscuits for my visitors and not giving them cake at all.
All clouds have silver linings and all that as it meant that once I photographed the cake, later that afternoon, I had not one, not two but .. ahem.. three pieces of cake all to myself.
Enjoy!
Lemon Poppy Seed Cake
- Prep Time: 10m
- Cook Time: 50m
- Total Time: 1h
- Yield: 8 slices
- Category: Cakes
Ingredients
- 140 grams all purpose flour (1 cup + 1 tbsp)
- 2 teaspoons baking powder
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 100 grams sugar (3/4 cup)
- 2 eggs
- 115 grams butter
- 2 tablespoons lemon curd
- 3 tablespoons poppy seeds
For the topping
- 1 lemon
- 2 tablespoons sugar
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350°F / 180°C / Gas mark 4
- Place all the ingredients (except the cake topping) in a mixer and combine
- Transfer into a lined 1 pound loaf tin
- Cook for approx 50 minutes. Check the cake after 40 minutes - if it is starting to brown too quickly, place a piece of tin foil over the top to stop it burning.
- Remove from oven. Pierce the cake all over and drizzle the lemon juice and sugar over the top to make a sugar crust.
- Remove from the tin once cooled
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