Love lemon poppy seed cake? Try this Triple Citrus Poppy Seed Cake for 3Xs the citrus punch. Read on to see if you really need to soak the poppy seeds and to find out how I tweaked the ingredients to get the cake texture just right.

Not only do do I use 3 different citrus fruits in the recipe, I add the citrus flavor is added in 3 layers. So I guess it’s triple Triple Citrus Poppy Seed Cake. First the zest from a lemon, a lime and an orange are baked into the cake. Then the juice is used to make a citrus syrup to moisten the cake and a citrus glaze for a glossy coating. I couldn’t decide if I wanted the bright burst of flavor from the citrus syrup or the crunchy finish of the glaze. So I did both. Why choose between two good options when you can have both?

White and black poppy seeds after soaking

A little Kitchen Experiment is always fun!

I love the crunch of the poppy seeds in this cake. I didn’t have enough black poppy seeds in the house and happened to have some tiny white poppy seeds from the Indian grocery. So I used 1/2 and 1/2 black and white seeds. You can’t really see them in the photos, but I still got the taste and crunch from the seeds.

Poppy seed recipes often start with “soaking the seeds”. Some recipes call for the seeds to be soaked in milk, some have you steep them in boiling water, and some just use them dry. My research into why the poppy seeds are soaked yielded conflicting information. Some articles say that soaking will soften the seeds and bring out the flavor, other claim you soak the seeds to rinse away opiates.

Well, since I’m always looking for an excuse for a kitchen experiment, I decided some original research was in order. I soaked one batch of seeds in milk and one in boiling water for 3 hours.

Now for the taste test: The dry seeds were very crunchy and fairly bland. The seeds steeped in boiling water were dark black, a little softer and more flavorful than the dry seeds. The seeds soaked in cold milk were the softest and had a dark gray color. The milk-soaked seeds had the strongest flavor, with a distinctly peppery aftertaste which I like. So my recipe calls for the seeds to be soaked in milk for several hours. If you want to skip that step the seeds will still add crunch to the cake, but will be less flavorful.

Creating the recipe for Triple Poppy Seed Cake!

Now that the poppy seed issue is sorted out, it’s on to the cake batter. This recipe is basically a citrus-poppy seed pound cake. The classic pound cake recipe is equal parts (by weight) of flour, sugar, eggs and butter. The flour and eggs give the cake structure and and butter and sugar tenderize the cake. There is a whole science of cake recipes called the “baker’s formula” or “baker’s percentage” which I won’t go into here. I am working on a series of posts that will explore the classic pound cake recipe in detail. Those posts will examine how each ingredient works and how the ingredients can be manipulated to change the recipe to your own taste.

For now I’ll just explain some small changes I made to the basic pound cake for this recipe. There is a little extra sugar in the recipe for a more tender cake. The recipe is a little heavier on eggs than flour because I wanted a slightly spongy texture for the cake. The eggs are separated and the whites are whipped and folded in to lighten the crumb. Of course I used my favorite reverse creaming method as I do for all butter cakes. The result is a light and tender cake that still has the rich buttery flavor of a pound cake.

Equipment: I baked this cake in a gorgeous square Bundt pan. There are so many beautiful Bundt shapes available today. Any 10 cup tube pan will work.

Continue to Content

Triple Citrus Poppy Seed Cake

Yield: 12

Prep Time: 30 minutes

Cook Time: 35 minutes

Total Time: 1 hour 5 minutes

Love lemon poppy seed cake? Try this Triple Citrus Poppy Seed Cake for 3Xs the citrus punch. Read the post to see if you really need to soak the poppy seeds and to find out how I tweaked the ingredients to get the cake texture just right.

Print

Ingredients

Batter

• 1/2 cup (2.5 oz, 70g) poppy seeds
• 1/2 cup (4 oz, 118 ml) whole milk
• 1 cup or 2 sticks (8 oz, 225g) unsalted butter, room temperature
• 1 cup plus 2 tablespoons (9 oz, 255g) granulated sugar
• Grated zest from 1 lemon, 1 lime and 1 orange
• 6 large eggs, separated, room temperature
• 1 1/2 cups (7 oz, 198g) cake flour
• 1/2 teaspoon salt

Syrup & Glaze

• 1/4 cup (2 oz, 60 ml) organge juice
• 2 Tbsp (1 oz, 30 ml)lemon juice
• 2 Tbs[p (1 oz, 30 ml)lime juice
• 1/3 cup (3oz, 85g) granulated sugar
• 1 cup (4 oz, 113g) confectioner's sugar

Instructions

1. Soak poppy seeds in milk for at least 3 hours. Drain and rinse.

Batter

1. Preheat oven to 325°F convection or 350°F regular
2. Thoroughly butter and flour a 10 cup Bundt pan, or use pan spray.
3. Combine the flour, salt, 1 cup sugar and zests in a mixing bowl
4. Mix on low speed to combine the ingredients
5. Add the butter and mix until combined, scrape the bowl thoroughly
6. Increase the speed to medium and cream for 2 minutes until the mixture lightens
7. Scrape the bowl and beater blade
8. Mix the yolks and poppy seeds into the batter and set it aside
9. Whisk the egg whites to soft peak
10. Slowly add the remaining 2 tablespoons of sugar
11. Increase the speed to medium high and whisk to full peak
12. Fold the whites into the base in 3 batches, mix just until no more steaks of white are visible
13. Pour the batter evenly into the pan
14. Bake for 35-40 minutes or until the cake springs back when lightly touched or when a toothpick inserted in the cake comes away clean.

Syrup

1. While the cake is baking, combine the juices of the lemon, lime and orange. You should have about 1/2 cup total.
2. Remove 2 tablespoons of the juice and mix it into the confectioner's sugar until smooth
3. Combine the remaining juice with the 1/3 cup granulated sugar
4. Stir until the sugar is dissolved

Finish

1. As soon as the cake comes out of the oven pour 1/2 the syrup over the top of the cake
2. Allow the cake to cool for 10 minutes in the pan
3. Invert the cake onto a cooling rack set over a sheet pan
4. Pour the remaining syrup over the cake and allow it to absorb
5. You can poke the cake with a toothpick to help the syrup absorb
6. As soon as the syrup is absorbed, pour the glaze over the cake and smooth it to go over the edges
7. The glaze will dry as the cake cools
8. Transfer the cake to a serving platter

Notes

The batter can also be baked into mini bundt pans for individual portions.

The cake will keep at room temperature for several days.

Did you make this recipe?

Please leave a comment on the blog or share a photo on Instagram

You might also like:

Honey pound cake

Perfect Pound Cake

Buttermilk Bundt Cake

Meyer Lemon Olive Oil Cake

Sour Cream Pound Cake

Golden Beet Orange Cake