Strawberry Poppy Seed Sponge Cake

I don't know how about you, but I'm quite cold these days. The summer season is definitely over and the temperature is lower every day. Oh, and don't forget to add rain to the mix! Yes, fall/autumn is coming or maybe I should say it's already here and to be honest I really don't look for a scoop of ice cream in days like these. In my dreamspace there is an imagination of a warm sweet piece of soft and tender sponge cake. So let's get some!

Okay, I know it's not usual to have fresh strawberries in September, but as you can see it's not impossible. I was doing some stuff in the garden (you know, tiding up leaves and so on) while I saw a few red strawberries staring at me! I was like „What the heck?“ Because one would think all these delicious red berries are well, dead by this time. Especially in this cold weather we're having here right now. So I was very surprised to see them. Of course, there was just a handful of them but still :) And the question was: „What to do with them?“

Answer wasn't that complicated. I decided to make quite a fast but very tasty sponge cake with poppy seeds as I truly love them. Poppy seed sponge cake is something we're very familiar with in my country. Usually it's just plain sponge cake with poppy seeds incorporated, but for me it's a little bit boring and dry. So I tried adding a few new ingredients and it worked well. I found the original recipe in a magazine (though I don't know its name as I cut out only the recipes), changed this and that and was pretty happy with how it turned out.

Ingredients:
200g boiled potatoes, peeled and grated
210g sugar
100g ground poppy seeds
100g all-purpose flour
2 eggs
150g strawberries, quartered
2 tbsp dried raisins
2 tbsp rum
2 tbsp oil
10g baking powder
juice from a ½ of lemon
1 tbsp chopped fresh mint leaves
½ tsp ground cinnamon
a pinch of salt
fat+breadcrumbs for greasing and flouring

Directions:
Mix raisins with rum in a cup and set aside for about 30 minutes. Mix chopped mint leaves with lemon juice and set aside, too. In a bowl beat egg yolks and sugar until light and fluffy. Add oil, grated potatoes and sifted flour with baking powder, poppy seeds and ground cinnamon. Mix until all ingredients incorporated. Gently fold in quartered strawberries, raisins with rum and mint leaves with lemon juice. Whisk egg whites with a pinch of salt until stiff peaks form. Gently fold into the mixture. Pour the batter to greased and floured (with breadcrumbs) spring cake form (22-24cm). Bake in preheated oven to 200C for about 35 minutes until golden brown.

• If you're not able to find fresh strawberries, you can use frozen ones.
  Try to decorate your sponge cake with sliced strawberries before baking.
• Serve with strawberry creamy sauce or softened ice cream – it adds a brand new dimension to the the cake. 

 
Verdict:
Hmm. I really really really loved this one! It's so moist and soft and the combination of strawberries, mint and poppy seeds is simply divine. I enjoyed it when still warm with softened homemade strawberry ice cream and it was yum-yummy :) However, the cake tastes great cold, too.


Linked to:
A Themed Bakers Sunday