In times past, the Ole Country Bakery in Brooksville, Mississippi was owned and run by a bunch of nice folks from the Mennonite community in Brooksville.
Anytime I found myself on Highway 45 driving from Meridian toward Starkville or Tupelo, my thoughts turned to Brooksville, MS Mennonites and the stuff they had baked that morning just for me.
A few years back, they sold their bakery and sandwich deli to some folks from the area who I hope are also Mennonite as I loved everything the original owners baked. My belief is that Mennonite women are blessed with extraordinary bakery skills that are superior to other religious groups (like Baptists, who are equally famous for our covered dish casseroles).
The joke I have shared too many times is that should my wife ever die, I'm going to convert from Baptist to Mennonite and get me a Mennonite wife because they all seem to be excellent cookie and cake bakers. The wife just smiles when I say that because she knows there is no way I will outlive her. I am also certain she has no illusions of marrying a Mennonite farmer when I am gone.
To waste a little more of your valuable time before I share a popular Mennonite recipe, we went through a ten-year period some years back where we lived in central Alabama and attended estate auctions throughout the small towns around the area. Many of these auctions included a table staffed by Mennonite women who sold cold drinks and every baked delight or sandwich one might want to eat while not holding his bid paddle up in an effort to buy some hundred-year-old piece of furniture or someone's junk.
WARNING - The excessive consumption of poppy seed may lead to a positive drug test, so if you get drug tested frequently, this might not be the cake for you.
Here is how we bake Almond Poppyseed Cake:
Almond Poppyseed Cake
You'll need:
3 Cups AP flour
1 1/2 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
2 1/4 cups sugar
3 eggs
1 1/2 cups milk
1 cup plus 2 Tablespoons oil
4 Tablespoons poppy seed
1 1/2 teaspoon vanilla
1 1/2 teaspoon almond extract
1 1/2 teaspoon butter extract
Note: There is a box of baking soda in my photo, but this cake contains no baking soda! Also, I forgot to show the sugar when I took the photo.
This recipe calls for a Bundt pan, but you may substitute any pan of suitable size you like. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Coat the cooking surface of bunt pan with shortening or butter and dust with sugar.
Add the rest of the ingredients.
Mix until you have a nice batter. You can use a stand or hand mixer or mix the batter by hand as long as you make certain it is well mixed.
Add the batter to the Bundt pan
Put the pan on the center shelf of the oven and bake at 350 degrees F for about an hour and 10 minutes. Check at 50 minutes to be certain all is OK because ovens cook differently. Lower the oven temperature 25 degrees if the pan is dark or if it is glass. The cake is done when a toothpick pushed into the cake comes out clean.
This pan was dusted with sugar and some shows around the edge of the cake. If
the pan is sugar dusted, only allow the cake to cool for ten minutes in the pan
and then turn it out onto a rack to finish cooling. If you leave it in the pan
for more than 10 minutes, it will stick to the pan and might refuse to come out.
3/4 cup powdered sugar
1/4 teaspoon butter extract
1/2 teaspoon almond extract
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
4 Tablespoons water
Mix the ingredients well and paint the top of the still warm cake. There is no reason not to use all the glaze. It will soak into the warm cake and dry as the cake cools.
The Mennonite version of this cake has no
glaze.
This is an excellent weekend cake or when you have company coming by for cake and
coffee. If you have a good cup of coffee and a slice of this cake, you have it
made.
Thanks for looking at my post.
9 comments:
The poppy seeds provide the spiritual experience and may cause a positive drug test.
Whenever you see those “Amish Mafia” reality shows, it’s actually Mennonites. They pretend to be Amish but drive around in cars and have smartphones.
10:51
I have a good friend who was a big shot with Dow Chemical. One time, to show they performed drug testing on a truly random basis, they asked him if he minded if they called him up for a random test. The next day they did and he tested positive for (I believe) Heroin.
Like a true dummy he forgot he had enjoyed a poppyseed bun on a deli sandwich a few days earlier and there were enough seed on the bun to create a positive test. He had to visit HR and then submit to scheduled testing for the next year. They also required him to stay away from poppyseed rolls during his drug probation period.
I will freely admit I love a corned beef on Poppyseed bread with crunchy mustard and a kosher pickle. As a retiree I should be ok unless the government starts testing Social Security benefit geezers for heroin as a requirement for getting the free benefit we have actually paid for in addition to our income tax every time we received a paycheck for years and years.
This looks delicious! I have wondered if chia seeds could be substituted, if you don't want to risk the positive test. I haven't tried it yet, though.
Sounds and looks great! Also love your pottery coffee mug.
Speaking of poppy seeds... Poppy Seed Chicken is pretty yummy too.
I used to visit that bakery often. The Mennonites have some faults, but they made good bread.
1:37 pm
I had to go look. That is a Shearwater Pottery cup. We have lots of Their stuff and really like every piece we have. Shearwater was home to Walter Anderson, a true American Master Painter. They are in Ocean Springs, MS
Hopefully the King of Fishes won't mind me posting a link:
http://www.shearwaterpottery.com/
on Facebook, shows current inventory
https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100083045754681
Never heard of butter extract. Can this be made with actual butter, and if so, what changes need to be made to the recipe? Thanks!
10:07 am
I would recommend going to Wally World, or Kroger or Piggly Wiggly and just buying a bottle of Mccormick's Butter extract. Not very expensive and really buttery. IMO, Manandonite women know their stuff when it comes to cake making and this was in their recipe book.
I would help you with making changes if I could, but I really do think this is the best way to make this cake.
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