poppy seed cake

NO – you can’t get high on poppy seed cakes. It’s the green, unripe pods and the poppy straw which are a source of opiates, not the ripe heads that contain seeds.

YES – poppy seeds do have some pain alleviating and sleep aiding qualities, to quite an insignificant extent. But then it may well be ascribed to a placebo effect, considering their traditional connotations.

DEBATABLE – whether eating poppy seed bagels or muffins can make you fail a drug test. Depends on the test and the amount you’d eaten.

But it certainly doesn’t make you invisible. This is the most interesting of the poppy seed myths, a witch-recipe claiming that wine that poppy seeds have been soaking in will make you invisible. Or so you shall think, having drunk enough of that wine…

Urban and peasant legends aside, those tiny black seeds deserve a legendary status in baking and pastry making, instead of just being warily sprinkled on a bread loaf or scantily scattered across a lemon drizzle slice. Eastern Europe and the Middle East are much more intrepid using poppy seeds – rightly so, as they make exceedingly good pastry filling (see Hamantaschen, Mohnstolen, Strudel). They also make quite an incredible tasting cake, the one below.

What can I say? One of the best ever (and I’ve baked a few…). Moist and buttery, even the vanilla flavour comes through which is unusual. I’ve baked it in the Bundt round tin and that works well as it eliminates the squidgy, gummy centre issues – centre being non-existent (see raisin cake for the same solution). The recipe is from NY Times Cooking collection – and theirs is one of the very few newsletters I actively anticipate.