German Poppy Seed Streusel Crumble Cake Recipe (2024)

Posted onFebruary 22, 2017February 29, 2024 Updated onFebruary 29, 2024

Sorry friends if you are on a diet but the hubby is baking again today. This is a recipe that I’ve been wanting to share for a really long time. We’ve had this recipe since before my son was born, so about 15 years and I remember translating it into English for my husband.

Every time I go to Germany, I go to our local bakery and order their loaded “Mohnkuchen” and you just can’t get anything close to it here in the US. So this is about the closest recipe to it I have.
It’s so so good but unfortunately not gluten-free. My husband might try to come up with a gluten-free version yet. He’s tried once but it needs tweaking.
He baked this for my birthday and I took pictures of him making it for me.

In Germany, you use “Quark” for this recipe which is similar to sour cream and yogurt but we came up with a mixture of sour cream and ricotta. Quark is a little bit more bitter though which is why I love our mixture.

Germans use a lot of Vanillin Sugar for baking which you can findHEREbut you can also use a mixture of sugar and vanilla beans which I have in my ingredients list. We stick with the German packages though.

I haven’t been able tofind a large amount of poppy seeds required for this cake at the local grocery stores here. So I buy mine…wait take a guess…yup… Amazon. See the one I buyHERE.

Germans also cook and bake with a scale not cups. So we just bought a little scale (HERE) and use that for German recipes which you can see in the photos. Or you can just use an online converter likeTHISandTHIS

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Dough:

• 150g quark (my mixture of 2 parts ricotta and 1 part sour cream)
• 75g sugar
• 300g flour
• 6 tbsp milk
• 6tbspvegetable oil
• 3 tsp baking powder
• a pinch of salt

For the filling:

• 500ml milk
• 40g of butter
• 60g of semolina
• German Vanilla SugarHERE(similar to ½ vanilla bean and 4 tbsp of sugar)
• 8 oz bag of poppy seedsHERE
• 6-8 tbsp of sugar (depending how sweet you like it)
• 2 eggs
• a sprinkle of cinnamon

Forthestreusels:

• 200g flour
• 100g butter (room temperature)
• 100g sugar

Preheat the oven to 375F

Start out by making the streusel so they can sit in the fridge while you make the rest of the cake:
Simply combine the butter, sugar, and flour in a bowl and knead it into a dough, and put it in the fridge.

Then it’s time for the bottom dough:

Mix the dough ingredients together. My husband likes to slowly mix in the flour and then knead it all to a soft dough.

See Also

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We use a greased 9 x 13ish pan and spread the dough out into it which you can see below.

Then you need to move on to the poppy seed filling:

Heat up the milk and butter in a pot until it starts to boil, add in the semolina, the sugar, and the Vanillin Sugar, and let it start to boil again while stirring. Quickly remove it from the stove and let the mixture soak for 5 minutes.

After that, you can add the poppy seeds, cinnamon, and eggs.

Mix it really well to avoid clumps and spread everything over the dough.

(Some German bakeries add raisins to the poppy seed mixture but I hate that. When I go to a bakery I ask if the cake has raisins in it and if it does, I don’t buy it. I usually like raisins but not in my Mohnkuchen)

Now it’s time to add the streusels/crumbles. Take the dough out of the fridge and crumble it over the poppy seed filling like my husband is doing in the below photo.

It should look similar to the photo below.

Then out the pan in the 375F oven and bake for about 25-30 minutes. It should look similar to the browned cake below when done.

At the end dust it with powdered sugar and ENJOY!

YUM, my absolute favorite!

You have to try this one. It’s also one of my son’s favorite cakes. He also loves the Boston Banoffee Pie my hubby makes and which you can findHERE.

If you are into German cooking and traditions then check out my favorite German Christmas decorations, my favorite German wooden Christmas ornaments, and my otherGerman decorshowcased in a Christmas home tour from a previous year.

Tschüß.

Here are some more of my hubby’s baking recipes (the photos will take you to see the posts):

Boston Banoffee Pie