Poppy Seed Quark Cake with Cranberry Jam

The floor first

1. The oven is now preheating. 170 degrees circulating air. For the shortcrust pastry base, first knead the cold butter, salt, lemon zest and sugar together. Make sure that the butter does not get too soft. Next, knead the egg yolks in and also smooth. In the meantime, you can put the egg white aside in a tall vessel, you will need it later. Finally, the flour is kneaded into the butter mass and the finished dough is placed in the refrigerator to rest. When the poppy seed mixture and quark mixture have been prepared, please grease the edge of the springform pan and flour. Warning: I always line the bottom of the springform pan with baking paper, otherwise the cake may stick.

The poppy seed mass

1. For the poppy seed mixture, bring the water, sugar and salt to a boil and stir in the poppy seeds and honey. Turn off the hotplate and let the pot stand on the warm hotplate. Caution: Always stir in between, so the poppy seeds can swell beautifully in the warm and absorb the liquid. Now stir in the rum and jam and let stand, do not forget to stir. I like to use plum jam or berry jam, but it shouldn’t be too sweet.

The curd mass

1. Mix the quark, egg yolks, sugar, lemon zest, cinnamon and milk together until smooth. Then sieve and stir in until all the lumps are smoothly stirred. Melt the butter and stir in too. But the butter must not be hot for this. Now whip up all of the egg whites with a pinch of salt and sugar. Please make sure that there is no fat on the protein, otherwise you won’t get it whipped up nicely. Now the egg white is carefully and gradually folded into the curd mixture.

Put everything together and bake.

1. The dough for the base is now rolled out. It must be larger than the springform pan so that the edge can also be laid out. The springform pan is now laid out with the dough, the edge must be pressed down nicely so that it sticks. A fork is used to poke small holes all over the dough. Now distribute the finished poppy seed mixture on the floor and smooth it out. The first half of the quark mixture is now poured onto the poppy seed mixture. Put the cranberry jam in a ring on the curd mixture with a spoon. Spread the rest of the quark mixture on the cake and put it in the oven. 170 degrees convection, approx. 55 minutes of baking. When you see that the cake is getting very dark, open the oven briefly and reduce the temperature to 160 – 150 degrees. I advise you to make the cake a day before consumption, so it can cool down properly and does not break when it is turned over. I found the recipe in a baking book and changed and added a few things myself. Sift powdered sugar onto the cake before serving.