Neighbours Affair

Yesterday, I went for a coffee at a neighbour's house taking DD along so she could play with her little son.We got to know each other some months ago at a condominium party (we met 4 years ago but never really had the chance to meet and talk) So I was really glad to go over there and chat over a coffee.

I thought about baking a cake that can go a long with the coffee, something simple but tasty at the same time.So I started to look into my kitchen cabbinates in order to find some ingredients that might inspire me for a cake.
Going through the stuff I had in there, I bumped into a box of popy seeds which I have bought sometime ago at the supermarket.Popy seed is not commonly used in the Italian kitchen and I have never seen yet anyone here using it in cake making.So I thought to myself :"why not?" and I started to prepare a cake that I used to make a lot when I was in college.It is a popy seed and raisins cake with a fresh lemony zest that fails not to impress everyone with it's simplicity yet very sophisticated twist (the popy seed).
You can prepare sugar glaze or just melt some dark chocolate and pour it on top to make a nice looking cake.I didn't do that on my cake ,I just took it with me the way it came out from the oven and it was really appreciated :-)


Happy Baking!



Popy seed and Raisins cake

Ingredients
for 24 cm ring pan

4 larg separated eggs
150 gr butter
200 gr (1 cup) sugar
A zest from one lemon
1 ts vanilla extract
70 gr (1/2 a cup) self raising flour
150 gr popy seed ( make sure it's minced)
5 tbs milk
2 tbs raisins
30 gr chopped walnuts ( I didn't have any so I used hazelnuts instead and it came out just fine)


Method

Preheat oven into 180°.
grease and dust a 24 cm round pan.
Mix butter with half of the sugar using an electric mixer.
Add egg yolks, lemon zest and vanilla, beat on a medium speed untill fluffy.
Mix the flour and the popy seeds and add in small batches to the butter mixture alternating with the milk.Add raisins and walnuts and mix gently with a spatula just until incorporated.
Beat egg whites with the remaining of the sugar (a little bit at a time) until a nice and stiff consistancy results in.Add to the butter and flour folding it gently from bottom to top, just until combined.Pour in the pan and bake for 35-40 minutes or until a skewer inserted in the middle of the cake comes out clean.