How are you, guys? Are you Xmas ready yet? As usual, I feel nowhere near ready and I keep on thinking that there is still plenty of time to get presents etc. until I take a look at a calendar and I am in shock at how wrong I am. This is why Duncan often laughs that my perception of time is not the most accurate. I get caught out by things.
I tell him that when you don’t have a regular 9-5 job and an office to go to, it is very often quite hard to tell a regular working day from the weekend. Take this week for example. Because Duncan is away until early next week and the weather is currently dreadful, I will probably be working on Sunday as, according to the latest weather forecast, it will be sunny (I’m not holding my breath) and I am still holding out for the magic of natural light. So yeah, as the Latin saying on the wall of our physics classroom said ‘panta rei’ (everything flows). Never thought I would say this, but Heraclitus was right 😛 . Life defies being put in the boxes we so love! So now that I gave my absentmindedness a bit of a philosophical overtone, let me put your mind at rest. I am vaguely aware that we have entered what is often referred to as the festive period and I do have 5 cracking and very Xmassy recipes up my sleeve. I shall be posting them on here between now and the day when we all eat ourselves silly. After that, it will all be about slimming foods as I reckon we will need that… Today’s recipe is a bit of a punt as I bet that many of you are not familiar with poppy seed roll at all, but as it is one of the traditional Xmas cakes I grew up with, I figured it’s high time I veganised it. I am really pleased with the result and judging by how quickly it disappeared after I shared it with our friends who weren’t familiar with it either, I hope you’ll like it too. It’s really easy to make with the exception of the need to grind poppy seeds. I know, I know, it does sound like a pain, but don’t be tempted to use unground poppy seeds, I beg you. Sadly for us vegans, the best equipment for grinding poppy seeds well is one of those old fashioned cast iron meat grinders, which I do not own (for obvious reasons), but my cheap coffee grinder did a good enough job. It is also possible to buy ground poppy seeds in some shops – especially Polish, Russian, German and Isreali delis – as using ground poppy seeds in baked goods is a fairly common thing in those cuisines.
125 g / 1 cup all purpose flour, sifted 7 g / 2 tsp instant yeast a good pinch of turmeric, for colour (optional) a pinch of salt 2 tbsp sugar 60 ml / ¼ cup lukewarm plant milk 25 g / 2 tbsp coconut oil, melted
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50-100 g / ½-1 cup icing sugar water
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