Poppy Seed Smetanik #CakeSliceBakers

Years ago, when I spent a summer in Moscow, I went to visit a friend's family in another town. Her name was Uliana, and she was artistic and kind (listen to me, trying to sound like Hemingway). We visited her grandmother's "dacha" and ate fresh tomatoes and pickles made from the cucumbers in her garden--a real celebration in a climate with a short growing season.  We returned to her parents' home, and her dad had picked up a cake from the grocery store. It was unlike anything I had tasted before: tangy frosting and a thick layer of poppy seed filling between moist layers of white cake. I don't know for sure what it was, but when I saw Poppy Seed Smetanik as a choice for this month's Cake Slice bake, I knew I needed to make it and see if it was the same. It wasn't exactly, but similar enough to be nostalgic!

One of my favorite parts of cooking is learning about what I'm making.  In learning about Eastern European sweets, I was surprised to see the prevalence of poppy seeds as an ingredient.  And not just a sprinkling of them--a whole.lot.of.poppy.seeds.  Like the cake I tasted in Russia, sweet fillings of macerated poppy seeds are popular across the region from Central Europe eastward through Asia. Poppy seeds have been an important crop for thousands of years, and used as medicine in ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia. I should have known from Seinfeld, but poppy seeds come from the same plant that is used in opium production. In fact, the little blue-black seeds are considered contraband in Saudi Arabia, Singapore, and Taiwan because of the trace amounts of opium alkaloids and potential to grow poppies for nefarious purposes. So don't make Poppy Seed Smetanik and mail a slice to your aunt in Taipei, capeesh?

Poppy seeds...show you who your true friends are. A friend that will tell you you've got one stuck in your teeth is a keeper.

For all this talk about poppy seeds, the main flavor came from the other ingredient that makes this very Eastern European--sour cream ("smetanya" in Russian). The recipe uses sour cream instead of butter or oil, making the layers denser and slightly bread-like. There is also a hefty amount of sour cream in the frosting--giving it a tangy and distinctive taste.

The outside is decorated with crushed cookies. Apparently, it is quite common and traditional practice in Eastern Europe to coat the outside of cakes with leftover crumbs or crunched up cookies. I used Nilla Wafers, much to the chagrin of my children who were horrified that I would crunch up perfectly good cookies.

I was tipped off by another Cake Slice Baker that she wished she'd followed her gut instead of the directions as written in the cookbook. Following my instincts, I changed a few steps and that made the bake successful--otherwise I think I would have had a sloppy disaster on my hands.  First, I mixed the frosting with a whisk attachment on my stand mixer to make it a bit thicker. The book warned that it would be slightly runny, and it was--so much so that I can't see how it could possibly have stayed between the layers.

Secondly, I assembled and decorated the cake in a spring form pan and let it chill for half an hour in the fridge to firm up. The frosting was still soft even though I whipped it up, and had I not put it in a contained pan, it would have run out everywhere. Plus, leaving the base on made it much easier to move and add the cookies.

And as a bonus, I didn't need to frost the sides of the cake--the spring form pan did the work for me.  BOOM.

My inspiration for decoration came from this plate.

It is a style of pottery from Bulgaria called "Troyan." Wondering how they do it, I watched a good 45 minutes of YouTube videos.  It is just mesmerizing. And they make it look much easier than it is.

For my interpretation, I used ganache--dark chocolate and white chocolate with a smidge of the dark mixed in.  I used about a 1:3 ratio of chocolate to cream, and then adjusted to make it a similar consistency as the sour cream frosting (of which I'd saved a small bit for the top, then heated slightly to make it runny again).  The recipe called for using melted chocolate, but after not being pleased with how straight chocolate turned out looking like broken sticks on a previous bake, I went for ganache instead.


The recipe book said that smetanya cakes are popular across Eastern Europe, so I figured that Bulgaria was part of that region as well.  But I asked a lovely Bulgarian-American friend about it, and she'd never heard of Poppy Seed Smetanik--people eat it in more Russian-influenced areas.  Hopefully decorating a Russian/Ukrainian cake in a Bulgarian way doesn't make it culturally clueless. Like Sandra Lee's Kwanzaa Cake or something.

If it is, my apologies. Bulgarians: your pottery is stunning. And Russians, I love your cakes ;)

I asked my two-year old what it tasted like.  She said, "Chocolate and polka dots."

I had mixed reviews by my (adult) taste-testers. I really liked it, but it does not taste "American." It is less sweet than many people were used to, and the frosting was similar to a softer, tangier cream cheese. And it was a little strange to have a main cake flavor that I associate more with like...baked potatoes than a dessert.

However, I did enjoy it. And I would gladly eat another slice :) As long as someone will tell me if I have a poppy seed stuck between my teeth.

Poppy Seed Smetanik

(adapted from The European Cake Cookbook by Tatyana Nesteruk)

Cake Layers:
1 1/4 c flour
1 c sugar
3 eggs
1 1/2 c sour cream
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 c poppy seeds

Frosting:
1 c softened butter
1 c sour cream
1 1/2 c powdered sugar
1 t vanilla

To Decorate:
crunched vanilla cookies
1/8 c dark chocolate
1/3 cup heavy cream

1/8 c white chocolate
1/8 c heavy cream

For the cake:
1. Grease and line the bottoms of 3 8-inch pans with parchment. Heat the oven to 350 degrees

2. Cream together the sour cream, eggs and sugar. Sift in the flour and baking powder, mixing until just combined.  Fold in the poppy seeds.

3. Divide the batter between the prepared pans, and bake 25 minutes or until a skewer comes out cleanly.  Let cool completely on a wire rack.  When cool, divide each layer in half with a serrated knife, making six thin layers.

For the Frosting:
1.  Cream the butter and sour cream together.  Add in the powdered sugar and vanilla, and whip with a whisk attachment until slightly thickened.  The frosting will be soft.

2. Using an 8-inch spring form pan, layer the cake and frosting, saving a small amount for the top and to touch up the sides. Be generous with the frosting layers--it's going to squish out and frost the sides also.

3. Place the dark and white chocolate in separate bowls.  Make two ganaches by heating up the cream until it is super hot. Pour over the chocolate chips. Add a small dollop of the dark ganache into the white, making a light brown color.  The ganaches should be the same consistency as the frosting, so adjust by adding more chips or cream as needed.

4. Frost the top with sour cream frosting. Using a cake turn table and squeeze bottle, carefully squeeze the chocolate in concentric circles and dots.  Use a toothpick to create designs in the frosting.  Spend way too much time watching YouTube videos of Bulgarian Troyan pottery to get inspiration.  Or just make whatever design you want--it'll still taste good :)

5. Let the cake firm up in the refrigerator--at least 30 minutes. Remove from the spring form pan, and press the crushed cookies around the side.

Each month The Cake Slice Bakers are offered a selection of cakes from the current book we are baking through. This year it is The European Cake Cookbook by Tatyana Nesteruk. We each choose one cake to bake, and then on the 20th - never before - we all post about our cake on our blogs. There are a few rules that we follow, but the most important ones are to have fun and enjoy baking & eating cakes! Follow our Facebook, Instagram, and Pinterest pages where you can find all of our cakes, as well as inspiration for many other cakes. You can also click on the thumbnail pictures below to take you to each of our cakes. If you have a blog and are interested in joining The Cake Slice Bakers and baking along with us, please send an email to thecakeslicebakers at gmail dot com for more details. The Cake Slice Bakers also have a new Facebook group called The Cake Slice Bakers and Friends. This group is perfect for those who do not have a blog but want to join in the fun and bake through this book.

Our choices for April 2019 were ~

1. Poppy Seed Smetanik 2. Rhubarb Strawberry Tea Cake 3. Opera Cake 4. Marbled Chocolate Orange Bundt Cake

Poppy Seed Smetanik

• Amandie Bakes - Amanda
• All That's Left Are The Crumbs - Felice

Marbled Chocolate Orange Bundt

• Karen’s Kitchen Stories - Karen
• Fan My Flame - Gina
• A Little Bit of All Right - Kim
• My Recipe Reviews - Susan

Rhubarb Strawberry Tea Cake 

• Culinary Adventures with Camilla - Camilla

Opera Cake

• Sweet Sensations - Sandra