Almond Poppy Seed Cake (Photos)

The Old Country Bakery in Brooksville, Mississippi is owned and run by a bunch of nice Mennonite folks. Anytime I get on Highway 45 heading North toward Starkville or Tupelo my thoughts turn to Mennonites and the stuff they have baked that morning just for me.

The joke I have shared too many times with my wife is that should she ever die, I'm going to change from Baptist to Mennonite and get me a Mennonite wife because they are excellent cookie and cake bakers. The wife just smiles when I drop that on her because she knows there is no way I will outlive her. I am also certain she has no illusions of marrying Mennonite when I am gone.

Anyhow, we have two or three Mennonite cookbooks in our collection and this cake (which is for sale every day at The Old Country Bakery in Brooksville) is a favorite at our house.

If you get drug tested frequently, this might not be the cake for you.

Almond Poppy Seed Cake

You'll need:

3 Cups AP flour
1 1/2 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
2 1/4 cups sugar
3 eggs
1 1/2 cups milk
1 cup plus 2 Tablespoons oil
4 Tablespoons poppy seed
1 1/2 teaspoon vanilla
1 1/2 teaspoon almond extract
1 1/2 teaspoon butter extract

Note: Yes there is a box of baking soda in my photo, but this cake has no baking soda!

Also, I forgot to get the sugar out when I took the photo.





Preheat oven to 350. Coat cooking surface of bunt pan with shortening and dust with sugar.

Mix flour, salt, baking powder, sugar in bowl and stir to make certain all dry ingredients are fully incorporated.



Add the rest of the ingredients.



and mix until you have a nice batter.



The batter will be wet - somewhat thin.



Add well mixed batter to bunt pan



and lick batter from the spatula. Put pan on the center shelf of the oven and bake at 350 F for about an hour and 10 minutes. Check at 50 minutes to be certain all is OK because ovens cook differently. Lower the oven temperature 25 degrees if the pan is dark or if it is glass. The cake is done when a toothpick pushed into the cake comes out clean.

This pan was dusted with sugar. If the pan is sugar dusted, only allow the cake to cool for ten minutes in the pan and then turn it out onto a rack to finish cooling. If you leave it in the pan for more than 10 minutes it will stick to the pan and refuse to come out.



We make a glaze for this cake.

3/4 cup powdered sugar
1/4 teaspoon butter extract
1/2 teaspoon almond extract
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
4 Tablespoons water

Mix well and paint the top of the still warm cake heavily.



This is an excellent weekend cake. If you have good coffee and a slice of this cake, you have it made.





My recommendation is you need to take a picture of you eating a bite of this cake. The photo will come in handy with your HR department when you are called in on Monday to take a drug test.


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