Poppy seed dumplings, poppy seed dumplings, Christmas poppy seed dessert

Ingredients for 4 servings:

• 4 slices of toast or white bread
• 75 g almonds, chopped, or nuts
• 200 g poppy seeds, ground (blue poppy seeds)
• 6 tbsp sugar
• 600 ml milk
• 175 g raisins, optional
• Rum, optional, or other alcohol that tastes good

Instructions

Working time approx. 15 minutes; Rest time approx. 6 hours; Total time approx. 6 hours 15 minutes

Simple dessert made from poppy seeds and white bread from Silesia

The following recipe is a combination of many recipes I’ve found, which I’ve adapted several times to suit my needs. Use a medium to large saucepan (or bowl) that can withstand boiling milk. The pan is only needed for mixing and chilling. Tear the white bread into small pieces. About big enough so that one piece easily fits on a teaspoon. Then add them to the mixing bowl. Add the almonds, poppy seeds, sugar, and raisins (or rum raisins) if desired. The amount of sugar can be varied. If you like it very sweet, you can add 1-2 tablespoons more; if you don’t like it quite so sweet, add 1-2 tablespoons less. Briefly bring the milk to a boil in a separate saucepan. Pour the hot milk into the mixing bowl over the poppy seed mixture and stir well. Let it cool, then refrigerate for several hours (about 6 hours or overnight). This allows the mixture to swell and infuse nicely. Serve in bowls (if the mixture is too thick, you can add milk at this point and stir well afterwards). Notes: Raisins and alcohol are optional. If you don’t like them, just leave them out. I always mixed the alcohol-soaked raisins into half of the mixture in the saucepan at the end (but then only used about 100g of raisins) to cover all possibilities. This means that the alcohol is only there to soak the raisins. You can, of course, just use regular, alcohol-free raisins. If you want to soak them, it’s best to do this a little beforehand and let the raisins drain before adding them to the mixture. Important: Be sure to use ground poppy seeds. You can buy them ready-made, but you can also make them yourself in a coffee grinder (as finely as possible), although this is a tedious job. The finer the poppy seeds are ground, the better they will swell in the milk at the end.