Croatian walnut and poppy seed dough cake Recipe

• Dough:
• 400 g flour
• 1 sachet instant yeast
• 50 g sugar
• 2 yolks
• ¼ tsp salt
• Grated zest of 1 lemon
• 80 g butter, melted
• 200 ml milk, warm
• 100 g butter, melted, for brushing the dough
• Walnut filling:
• 200 g walnuts, finely ground
• 100 g sugar
• 100 g raisins
• A pinch of cinnamon
• 2 tbs rum
• ½ tsp vanilla extract
• 100 ml milk, boiling
• Poppy seed filling:
• 150 g poppy seeds, finely ground
• 100 ml milk
• ½ tsp vanilla extract
• 80 g sugar
• 50 g raisins
• Grated zest of ½ lemon
• A pinch of cinnamon

Directions

1.

Warm the flour in a microwave oven for 30 seconds. Add dry yeast, stir. Add all the other ingredients and with warm milk knead smooth dough. You can knead it by hand or by a hand mixer, until it’s surface is smooth and shiny.

2.

Cover the dough and put it in a warm place to rise and double the volume.

3.

Meanwhile, prepare the walnut filling: mix and combine walnuts, sugar, raisins, cinnamon, rum and vanilla extract. Pour in the hot milk and stir until all ingredients are combined.

4.

For the poppy seed filling, briefly cook poppy seeds in hot milk, add sugar, raisins, lemon zest, cinnamon and vanilla extract and stir until all the ingredients are combined. Cool both fillings.

5.

Roll the dough into the 1 cm thick rectangle. Brush the rectangle with the melted butter and spread the walnut filling on the half of it.

6.

Spread the poppy seed filling over the other half of the dough rectangle.

7.

Roll each half of the dough towards the middle, assemble two halves and carefully transfer onto the greased baking sheet (app. 35 x 20 cm). Leave to rest for 10 minutes before baking; bake in an oven at 200°C for about 50 minutes.