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5 from 4 votes

German Poppy Seed Roll (Mohnstriezel)

Easy and perfect German poppy seed coffee cake with marzipan. Made with homemade yeast dough that's filled with homemade poppy seed marzipan filling and finished off with crumbles to create a delicious dessert worthy of any celebration.
Prep Time40 minutes
Cook Time50 minutes
Rise Time2 hours 30 minutes
Total Time4 hours
Course: afternoon coffee, afternoon tea, Breakfast
Cuisine: European, German
Keyword: baking, bread and doughs, Christmas, Easter, German poppy seed coffee cake recipe, make ahead desserts, Mohnstriezel, poppy seed coffee cake, poppy seed nut roll, poppy seed roll, potluck
Servings: 16 Servings
Author: Ester | esterkocht.com

Equipment

  • baking sheet and parchment paper
  • Hand grater
  • Stand mixer (OPTIONAL)
  • Rolling pin
  • Whisk

Ingredients

Ingredients for the sweet yeast dough

  • 500 g (17.6 oz/ 4 cups) plain flour (all purpose flour) plus extra for dusting
  • teaspoons dry yeast (1 package of dry yeast (7 g/ ¼ oz))
  • 1 medium egg
  • 50 g (1.8 oz/ ¼ cup) sugar
  • 80 g (2.8 oz/1/3 cup) butter
  • 250 ml (8.5 fl oz/ 1 cup) milk
  • 1 teaspoon salt

Ingredients for poppy seed filling with marzipan

  • 200 g (7.1 oz) poppy seeds ground
  • 50 g (1.8 oz/ ¼ cup) sugar
  • 350 ml (12 fl.oz/ 1 ½ cups) milk
  • paste for 1 vanilla bean
  • 1 medium egg
  • 200 g (7.1 oz) marzipan
  • 30 g (1.1 oz/ ¼ cup) corn flour/ cornstarch
  • 1 lemon organic

Ingredients for the streusel/ crumble topping

  • 100 g (3.5 oz/ about ¾ cup + 2 tbsp) plain flour (all purpose flour)
  • 100 g (3.5 oz/ 2/3 cup) chopped almonds/ almonds flakes
  • 50 g (1.8 oz/ ¼ cup) sugar
  • 100 g (3.5 oz/ about 1/3 cup + 2tbsp) butter

Ingredients for jam topping and lemon icing

  • 3 tablespoons apricot jam or any (I've used homemade apple -pear jam)
  • 55 g (2 oz/ about ½ cup icing sugar powdered sugar
  • 21/2 tablespoons freshly squeezed lemon juice

Instructions

How to make the yeast dough

  • Warm milk in the microwave. Pour half of the milk in a jar. Put the butter in the remaining milk in the jar and melt in the microwave. Stir occasionally until butter has melted. You could also use a pot and warm the milk on the stove. In the meantime add 2 tablespoons flour, 1 tablespoon sugar and yeast to the jar with lukewarm milk. Stir well and let the mixture stand for 10 minutes.
  • Remove the jar with milk – butter mixture from the microwave and let cool. Put the flour, the remaining sugar, egg and salt in a bowl. Then pour in the yeast - sugar mixture. Start mixing, while adding the lukewarm milk - butter mixture slowly. It's very important that milk and butter mixture is lukewarm and not hot before using it.
  • Knead the dough very well. I normally knead my dough like this : If I’m kneading it with the hand mixer, I knead the dough for about 8 minutes at low speed and then for 5 minutes at medium high speed. With the kitchen machine, I knead the dough for 7 minutes at low speed and for 3 more minutes at medium high speed. With the hands, I knead the dough for 10 minutes. If you’re using a heavy duty kitchen machine, please knead your dough for maximum 7 minutes.
  • Cover the bowl with cling film and then with kitchen towel. Let the dough rise for about 2 hours at room temperature. (I just put the bowl in the cold oven with a closed oven door.) After kneading the dough it becomes less sticky. Thus why you don't necessarily have to dust the bowl with flour before letting it rise.

How to make poppy seed filling with marzipan

  • In the meantime make the poppy seed filling: Using the tip of the knife split the vanilla bean lengthwise and scrape out the vanilla seeds. Mix the scraped out seeds with sugar very well. Pour 3/4 of the milk in a pot and add sugar and vanilla seeds from the vanilla bean and let cook. In the meantime zest the lemon. All you have to do is cut a parchment paper of the same length as the box grater, place it on the side that isn’t finger friendly and grate. Using a parchment paper makes it easier to remove the zest from the parchment paper. On top of that you won’t be having any lemon zest lying around. Next add cornstarch to the remaining milk and stir well. Then grate marzipan with a hand grater.
  • Once the milk starts cooking immediately add poppy seed to the pot and mix well. Then stir in milk - cornflour mixture followed by the lemon zest. Let the poppy seed mixture cook for about 2 minutes. Next remove from heat and crack in the egg and mix well. Add grated marzipan, combine well and let the filling infuse in the fridge while the dough is rising.

How to make almond crumbles for the topping

  • Shortly before the end of the first rise make the crumbles. Simply add sugar, almonds, butter and flour to an empty bowl. Using your hands mix all the ingredients together until small crumbles start to form and set aside as well.

How to roll poppy seed roll

  • After you let the dough rise for about 2 hours , remove it from the bowl and put it on a lightly floured silicone pastry mat or cutting board. Slightly flour the dough and roll it with a lightly floured rolling pin into a rectangle about 40 x 50 cm (approximately 15 x 20 inches)). Spread the poppy seed filling over the rolled out dough, leaving 1 cm (0.4 inch) free and then roll. First roll up about 3 cm (1.18 inch) (this is just an estimation I made when writing the recipe. so there is no need to be exact.) of the rolled out dough spread with poppy seed filling on both short sides. Then carefully roll up the dough lengthwise so that in the end you have one long roll. Gently lift up the roll and put it on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper. Lightly brush the roll with water and sprinkle the top with crumbles. Using your hands gently press the crumbles on top of the roll, so that they won't slide off. Cover the roll with kitchen towel and let rise for another 20 minutes.

Bake and drizzle with icing

  • Preheat the oven to 180 ° C (356 °F), with both top and bottom heat. After the second rise bake for 50 minutes. Immediately after baking brush with warm jam and let cool for few minutes while making the icing sugar. In the meantime combine powdered sugar and lemon in a bowl and mix well and then drizzle the roll with icing. Enjoy!!

Notes

  1. The roll stays fluffy, moist and light even after 3 days. Just keep baking sheet with poppy seed roll covered with a kitchen towel.
  2. If you don't have vanilla bean simply use ¼ teaspoon vanilla extract or 1 tablespoon vanilla sugar.