Europe, especially eastern Europe, has a rich tradition of baked goods with poppy seeds.   This is one of my favorites.

Poppy Seed Cake

Delicious,  rich, and very easy to make.   This was inspired by Rick Rodgers’, Kaffeehaus cookbook, but I have made some changes to it.

Ingredients

2 cups King Arthur self rising flour, divided

1 cup butter

4 large eggs

1 cup sugar

Rum flavoring,  vanilla flavoring

1 cup ground poppy seeds

2/3 cup milk

Set your eggs and butter out so they are room temperature.  Preheat your oven to 350 degrees.

With a blender, combine butter and sugar until creamy.  Add one egg at a time, blending each in completely before adding the next.  Add a teaspoon of each of the flavorings.  Add one cup flour, blend, add milk and blend, and add second cup of flour.  Stir in one cup of poppy seeds that have been run through a coffee grinder in order to get them to release their flavor (this also makes them more pleasant to chew in the cake).

Pour the cake batter into a buttered and floured cake pan – a bundt pan turns out nicely.  Bake for 45 – 55 minutes in a 350 degree oven.