Poppy Seed Cake -- Baked for the Four Hundredth Week, for No Occasion and Every Occasion

Four hundred weeks of writing for RecipeSpinoff. I noted the milestone in the journal — not publicly, not on the blog, but privately, the way I note all milestones now: with a sentence in the journal and a piece of rugelach. Four hundred weeks is seven years and eight months. Four hundred essays about food and family and the Jewish kitchen and the chain. Four hundred recipes connected to four hundred weeks of a life that has contained retirement and Alzheimer's and grandchildren and a book in progress and a husband in Cedarhurst and daily visits and matzo balls and the specific, exhausting, magnificent labor of continuing.

I am sixty-six years old. I have been writing for RecipeSpinoff since I was fifty-nine. I have been cooking since I was old enough to stand on a step stool in Sylvia's kitchen and stir, which was approximately age five. I have been a mother for thirty-eight years. I have been a grandmother for ten. I have been a wife for forty-two years, though the marriage has changed form so many times that it is barely recognizable as the thing it was when it started — from shared life to shared house to shared disease to shared room to shared food to the sharing that remains: the container, the spoon, the voice, the hand. The sharing narrows. The love does not.

I made a honey cake — not for Rosh Hashanah, for no occasion, for the occasion of four hundred weeks, which is an occasion I invented because the occasion needed inventing, because some milestones are private and the private milestones need cake. The cake was sweet. The four hundred weeks were sweet and bitter and everything in between. The cake acknowledges all of it.

I had intended a honey cake — and then I thought about what I actually wanted, which was something quieter, less freighted with the holiday associations, something that would sit on the counter and say this week mattered without announcing itself to anyone but me. The poppy seed cake is that cake. It is humble and slightly old-fashioned and it is exactly the kind of thing Sylvia would have made on a Tuesday for no reason she would have named out loud. Four hundred weeks deserved exactly that: something that knew its own worth without needing to explain it.

Poppy Seed Cake

Prep Time: 20 minutes | Cook Time: 55 minutes | Total Time: 1 hour 15 minutes | Servings: 12

Ingredients

• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1/3 cup poppy seeds
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon fine salt
• 3/4 cup (1 1/2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened
• 1 1/4 cups granulated sugar
• 3 large eggs, room temperature
• 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
• 1 tablespoon fresh lemon zest
• 1 cup sour cream or plain whole-milk yogurt
• Powdered sugar, for dusting (optional)

Instructions

1. Prep the oven and pan. Preheat your oven to 350°F. Grease a 10-cup Bundt pan or a 9-inch tube pan thoroughly with butter and dust lightly with flour, tapping out any excess.
2. Combine the dry ingredients. In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, poppy seeds, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Set aside.
3. Cream the butter and sugar. In a large bowl, beat the softened butter and granulated sugar together with an electric mixer on medium-high speed until pale and fluffy, about 4 minutes. Scrape down the sides of the bowl as needed.
4. Add eggs and flavorings. Add the eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition. Mix in the vanilla extract and lemon zest until just combined.
5. Alternate wet and dry. Reduce mixer speed to low. Add the flour mixture in three additions, alternating with the sour cream in two additions — beginning and ending with the flour. Mix only until each addition disappears; do not overmix.
6. Fill the pan and bake. Spoon the batter evenly into the prepared pan and smooth the top with a spatula. Bake for 50–55 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean and the top is golden.
7. Cool and unmold. Let the cake cool in the pan on a wire rack for 15 minutes. Run a thin knife around the edges, then invert carefully onto the rack to cool completely, at least 30 minutes more.
8. Finish and serve. Dust with powdered sugar just before serving if desired. The cake keeps well, covered, at room temperature for up to 3 days — and improves on the second day.

Nutrition (per serving)

Calories: 320 | Protein: 5g | Fat: 16g | Carbs: 40g | Fiber: 1g | Sodium: 180mg