Mohnstrudel - showcasing the humble poppyseed

There are many ingredients in the baking world that seem to not be popular enough to be used to their full flavour potential. Peanut butter, chocolate and cinnamon to me have been oversaturated in sweets.

What of other tantalising delights, such as kiwifruit, pistachios, and poppy seeds?

Poppy seeds especially have been misunderstood in their potential, being shoved into the nearest citrus flavoured cake or sprinkled on top of bread. Their potential shines when finely ground with a spice/coffee grinder and boiled with sugar and milk to produce a sweet, tasty and dare I say- addictive filling.

My favourite variation of using poppy seeds is the mohnstrudel.


Mohnstrudel comprises of two components: the sweet yeast dough that will be used as the 'pastry' and the tasty poppy seed filling (mohn is translated as poppy seed). Some people may find this strudel unusual, being used to the flaky pastry layers of strudel dough used in the popular apfelstrudel. This dough is also used to make a strudel variation using walnuts and is used in many sweet dumpling recipes.

One of the best recipes online for mohnstrudel is found at Bernhard's Austrian Cooking. I modified the recipe ingredients slightly for vegans below, but I do recommend to go over to his website and follow the excellent instructions to make tasty mohnstrudels of your own.

Instructions and filling recipe for mohnstrudel by Bernhard's.

Vegan recipe for sweet yeast dough:

- 3 c flour
- 1 1/4 t dry yeast
- 1/2 cup sugar
- 3/4c + 2 T vegan milk (add more milk a tablespoon at a time if dough is too dry)

Bernhard mixes all the ingredients together, however I gently heat the vegan milk and sugar together first, until the sugar is mostly dissolved and the milk is lukewarm- not burning hot (or you will kill the yeast!).

I add this liquid mixture to the yeast to activate it and watch for it to start foaming. Then I stir in the yeast/milk/sugar mix with the flour.

Strudel filing:

Follow ingredients for filling, but replace honey with:
- 2 T rice syrup

Of course, the best bit is always eating the filling!