I can’t remember what year I started making makowiec (poppyseed roll cake) but I’m pretty sure it’s been 4-5 years at this point. I don’t know why I got the idea in my head to do it in the first place—just something I wanted to try. Pretty sure my first attempt was for a party and nobody touched it, so now I joke every year that it’s time to make the cake that nobody likes but me. 🙂

I only make it once a year for Christmas. It takes the rest of the year to get all the poppyseeds cleaned up and then it’s time to make it again. It’s also kind of a pain in the ass to make. It’s an enriched dough rolled with poppyseed filling; it’s not especially technical but there are just a lot of steps. And the poppyseeds get everywhere.

Nobody else likes it and it’s annoying to make: these facts only strengthen my resolve to make it every year. It’s a principle thing at this point. Bren admits that it’s growing him and JP will grow up with it so she’ll like it.

This year I thought I’d try a different recipe just for fun and riffed off a recipe I found on a site called Polish Your Kitchen. I did make some changes based on my personal preference: I used toasted almonds instead of walnuts and I put the zest of one orange in the dough and candied orange peel from one orange in the filling. This was NOT enough so next year I’ll have to double it. I also felt like the filling was missing something—other recipes include vanilla or almond extract but this one didn’t—so I might double down on almond and include the extract next year too.

I have always rolled this cake from the long edge (long boi) but this recipe said to roll from the short edge (thicc boi). I was like…have I been making this wrong this whole time? So I made one of each. Turns out I wasn’t making it wrong: thicc boi has too much filling and just falls apart. Interestingly, the recipe was also not making it wrong: the text said short edge but picture showed her rolling from the long edge.* Unfortunately I didn’t look at the pictures. So……. At least now I’ve tried it and I can confidently live my life rolling from the long edge. 😆

*I did ask Bren to confirm my understanding of short vs long edge rolling. As somebody who doesn’t know my right from left I was worried I had also been wrong about that this whole time but it seems it was just a typo. Although to be honest I’m still not 100% confident in my understanding of this concept.

Recipe

Modified from Polish Your Kitchen

Ingredients

• Filling:
  • 1 pound poppyseeds
  • 4 oz of butter
  • About a cup of sugar—I thought the filling was already pretty sweet so I think I was a little under a cup. I just kept adding it bit by bit until I felt like it was enough
  • 4 tbs of honey
  • 3/4 cup raisins YOU PEOPLE AND YOUR RAISINS I did candied orange peel instead—as noted, one orange was not enough, should be at least two.
  • 1 cup walnuts 1 cup toasted almonds (slivered & pulsed a couple times in the food processor)
  • +Whites of 2 eggs, use the leftovers from the dough (the original recipe doesn’t include this in the ingredient list but mentions the whites in the directions)
  • +For next year: maybe add a tsp of almond extract?
• Dough:
  • 3/4 cup of warm milk
  • 1/2 cup of sugar
  • 1 1/2 tbs of dry active yeast (fun fact: half a tbsp is 1.5 tsps)
  • 3 1/2 cups of all purpose flour
  • 1 egg plus 2 yolks (large eggs)
  • 2 oz of butter (melted)
  • Pinch of salt
  • +Zest of one orange—as noted, one was not enough, need at least two
• For glaze:
  • Powdered sugar + lemon juice: if it’s too thin add sugar and if it’s too thick add lemon juice. Do that until you get what you want.

Here are the instructions (my version):

1. Make the dough, let rise at least one hour.
2. Boil water; add poppyseeds; let simmer for 45 minutes. Drain seeds and grind them. I only have a food processor which basically doesn’t do anything but makes me feel good. The original recipe says to use a meat grinder. Anyway, my filling is pretty grainy which doesn’t bother me.
3. Melt butter, add honey, sugar, candied orange peel, and poppyseeds, stir around until everything is coated. Whip the egg whites (fairly stiff, or until you get tired) and fold them in.
4. Divide dough and roll out. I rolled it out until I “felt like” it “looked right”—this turned out to be 17×10, larger than the original recipe’s 12×9. What can I say, I do like the long bois.
5. Spread filling leaving about an inch around, roll up FROM THE LONG EDGE (?), put on baking sheet seam down.
6. Bake for 40 minutes, or until golden brown, or maybe your oven is unpredictable and you get a little too dark brown IDK
7. Make glaze, pour on cakes
8. Eat a few pieces by yourself and put the rest in the freezer

PS the way to candy orange peel is to cut away the pith and boil it for like 20 minutes. Then put it in a simple syrup (1:1 water and sugar) and let it simmer forever…or like 45 minutes. DO NOT let it come to a boil/let the sugar get too hot or it will get hard and make your peel impossible to eat. Not that this happened to me or anything.

See ya next year! 😀