Last night, feeling in such a good mood to bake a cake, I started thawing the butter and preheating the oven only to discover that I was out of all-purpose flour. I was about to concede defeat when I remembered that I still had a bag of whole wheat flour. If a little cornstarch could be added to all-purpose flour to make cake flour, I wondered what would happen if I added more cornstarch to whole wheat flour and baked a cake using the mixture. I took the plunge (I had already used up so much gas preheating the oven, after all) measured and mixed everything and baked a white chocolate, lemon and poppy seed cake.
Result? Very good. The cake was wonderfully light with a nutty feel from the coarser bits in the whole wheat flour. But it wasn’t chewy nor dense. The texture is very interesting, really, because you occasionally get a sensation of melted chocolate in your mouth. And the aroma? Oh my goodness. Lemon zest is a miracle ingredient.
Recipe: White chocolate, lemon and poppy seed cake
Ingredients
- 1/3 c. of butter
- 3/4 c. of sugar
- 1/2 c. of white chocolate morsels
- 1/2 c. of milk
- 1 egg
- 2 lemons
- 4 tbsps. of poppy seeds
- 3/4 c. of whole wheat flour
- 1/4 c. of cornstarch
- 3/4 tsp. of baking powder
- a generous pinch of salt
- 2 tbsps. of powdered sugar, for dusting
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350F.
- Place the butter, sugar and white chocolate morsels in a microwavable bowl.
- Pour in the milk.
- Microwave on HIGH for two to three minutes or just until the butter melts. Stir until the sugar dissolves. It is okay if the white chocolate morsels are still solid — they will melt during baking. Leave to cool.
- Zest the lemons.
- Sift together the whole wheat flour, cornstarch, baking powder and salt. If the grainier bits of wheat don’t pass through the sifter, dump them in with the sifted mixture anyway. You just want to incorporate air into the dry mixture and make sure there are no lumps.
- Beat the egg into the butter-milk mixture.
- Stir in the lemon zest and poppy seeds.
- Pour the batter into a pan (see notes below). Bake for 40 minutes at 350F or until a toothpick inserted at the center comes out clean.
- Cool the cake in the pan for 10 minutes. Invert then re-invert onto a rack and cool completely. Dust with powdered sugar before serving.
Quick notes
I used a silicone pan (see photos). If you’re using a regular pan, you may want to butter and line it before pouring in the batter.
Preparation time: 10 minute(s)
Cooking time: 40 minute(s)
Number of servings (yield): 4
I love poppy seeds! Where did you get yours? It still irks me to no end when Tito Sotto was ranting about them – so how come we still have no poppy plantations when it was being imported all these years?
Hello Ms. Connie,
When adding the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients to form the final cake batter, should I mix/blend all the ingredients very well or just enough to moisten the flour mixture (like muffins)?
Thanks.
where did you get your poppy seeds? i thought this was banned already in the Philippines? i love lemon-poppy seeds muffin…
Natzsm, ahhh, I mixed very well.
Maricel and Nina, there is no ban.FDA says poppy seeds for pastries not banned.Although Tito Sotto still insists.Oops, sorry, there is a ban on importation.
I guess that my year-old jar of poppy seeds will be the last until people see the light of day.