Surely nothing screams “LOCKDOWN” like a traybake. America has its Preppers, Britain has Bakeoff wannabes. Global pandemic? We don’t bolt to a bunker. We bake!

So bake a cake. Bake a traybake cake. Then, rather than ward off neighbours or the poor Postie at gunpoint, you can give cake. Or…you can just gobble it up yourself screaming the world is only one step away from a zombie apocalypse and you’re taking lockdown quite literally.

Whatever. This cake’s a corker!

Now you might think I first encountered this German cake in Munich, probably at the Oktoberfest. You’d be wrong. Though there is an Oktoberfest tangent to this story. I’ll come to that in a jiffy. Actually we were living in Reading. We’d just bought a house. Our first. And it had a bloody big hedge out front. There was Roberta, one weekend in those first weeks, pruning this hedge with her manicure scissors—we were ill-equipped renters up to then—when up strides this chap from over the road, donned in Lederhosen and brandishing an industrial-sized trimmer. No joking. His name was Lothar, a German gent who always wore lederhosen at home. He said they couldn’t be beaten on comfort. And he’s right. Anyway, he kindly offered the use of his jumbo trimmer. Once he’d established that Roberta was Austrian his first question was how she felt about British bread. Without a good word to say Lothar put Roberta in touch with Backhaus Bakery. 15 years later in Battersea we were still enjoying Mohnkuchen and other delicious delights from Backhaus Bakery. Sadly they’re not trading anymore.

It turns out leather-clad Lothar was an Oktoberfest regular. He persuaded us to join him and his friends at the festival that year—it was 2003. I know because I’ve got a fridge magnet. It was my first time. I hated it. Can you believe it? I loved the beer, the nom, and the music. The crowds I did not love. And yet it has been an annual pilgrimage ever since. I love it now. How come? That’s a story for another time.

Mmmmm. Mohnkuchen.

Ingredients

Poppy seed filling:

300g poppy seeds
500ml milk
80g unsalted butter
120g honey
1tsp ground cinnamon
50g fine semolina
2 large eggs
1tsp lemon zest

Streusel:

300g plain white flour; organic and stoneground preferably
175g sugar
Pinch of salt
200g unsalted butter, cubed and at room temperature
1tsp vanilla extract

DOUGH:

200g low-fat quark
100ml milk
100ml vegetable oil
75g sugar
400g plain white flour
1tbsp baking powder

Method

1. Preheat the oven to 200C.

2. Line a baking tray with baking parchment. Use a tray with a high rim.

3. Pour the poppy seeds into a fine sieve. Wash under running cold water while stirring the poppy seeds so the water gets to all of them. Drain well. Bash about half of them into a mass; I used a mortar and pestle. Mix the whole and crushed poppy seeds together in a large bowl.

4. Heat the milk, butter, honey and cinnamon in a pan over a medium heat, stirring continuously. When it starts boiling mix in the poppy seeds and semolina. Reduce the heat and let it bubble gently for 2 or 3 minutes until the mixture thickens. Remove the pan from the heat and let the mixture cool down for at least an hour.

5. Incorporate the eggs and lemon zest into the cooled mixture. Reserve for later.

Whatever you do, don’t forget this step like I did. My cake was 30 seconds in the oven then SCREAM. I’d forgotten the eggs. Back out it came. Talk about deconstructed. I had to delicately remove the streusel and scrape the poppy seed filling away from the dough underneath. Some of the streusel clung resolutely to the poppy seed layer. C’est la vie. It got mixed in when I put the cake back together. No damage done, though I won’t make that mistake again.

6. Pour the flour, sugar and salt into a mixing bowl and stir with a whisk. Add the cubes of butter and vanilla extract and rub between you fingers until you get nice big crumbs. Reserve for later.

7.Mix the quark, milk, oil and sugar in a large bowl. Sieve in the flour and baking powder and mix until it’s just combined. It’s gonna be tough and sticky and possibly a little lumpy and that’s ok. Transfer the dough to the baking tray and spread or roll it out to cover the entire tray with one even layer. This is not as easy as it sounds. And work fast because the baking powder is activated.

I couldn’t resist giving the dough a bit of a knead for 30 seconds. Buggered if that didn’t make the dough even more difficult to spread. It was like trying to detach from fly paper. So, If you feel the need to knead—don’t!

8. Pour over the poppy seed filling and smooth out to create an even layer.

9. Sprinkle over the streusel.

10. Bake in the oven for 40 to 45 minutes until the streusel have a lovely golden colour. Take out of the oven and leave to cool completely before removing from the tray and portioning.