‘Mohnzopf’ is a pretty well known pastry in austria. While getting the traditional form down is a bit more tricky, using a bread baking form makes the task very easy. If you love poppy seeds, this recipe is something to try out for sure.

Ingredients

Dough

• 500g cake flour
• 250g warm milk
• 20g fresh yeast
• 80g melted butter
• 60g selfmade vanilla sugar
• 5g salt

Filling

• 200g ground poppy seeds
• 120g milk
• 100g selfmade vanilla sugar
• 50g butters
• 3g salt
• 2cl rum

Topping

• juice of one lemon
• roughly 250g powdered sugar

Instructions

Dough

Melt the butter and add the milk. The mix should have about body temperature. Now add some flour, sugar and the yeast. Let this sit for about 15 minutes in a warm place. Once the yeast is active (the mixture should have risen at least 50%), knead all dough ingredients together. Let this sit for ca. 40 minutes in a warm place.

Filling

Melt the butter and mix everything together.

Forming

Roll the dough out on an oiled surface to a rectangular shape. Spread the filling evenly. Now roll the dough together. If it is too long to fit your form, cut it in half. Now slice it lengthwise, though do not cut through both ends. Twist the two sides. This might be a bit messy (it for sure was during my first try as the filling was too wet).

Usually you bake it directly on a baking tray, however I do use bread forms because its just easier and it will look nice even if the dough or filling was too wet. Let the dough rest at least 10 minutes before placing it in the preheated oven!

Baking

Place it in a baking form (if it has a nice shape you can also bake it directly on a tray) and bake it for 30-40 minutes on 180 degrees. When baking it in a silicon form I placed the baking tray lower and covered the goodies with a sheet of baking paper for the last 10 minutes of baking.

Once out of the oven let it fully cool down. For the topping mix the lemon juice and sugar. Sprinkle it on top of the Mohnzopf, let it dry and enjoy.

Next Time:

• Do not use unground poppy seeds. Texture is not that great. In addition, you have to reduce liquid drastically. I let them soak for a good hour in the listed milk, though the filling was still way too wet.
• Reduce milk in filling. Done
• Add salt to filling. Done
• Add rum to filling. Done
• Let the dough sit for 10 minutes after forming before baking it

Versions

Filling v2

• 200g ground poppy seeds
• 150g milk
• 100g selfmade vanilla sugar
• 50g butters
• 3g salt
• 2cl rum

Filling v1

• 200g ground poppy seeds
• 200g
• 100g selfmade vanilla sugar
• 50g butter

Note: filling was too wet. Twisting was a pain. Reduce milk and maybe add some rum for better and more exciting flavor.