This poppy seed cake with streusel and pudding is the perfect sheet cake: Quickly made, moist and simply delicious!

I love this fast poppy seed cake with pudding and sprinkles!
Because it tastes so moist and aromatic. And even though it contains poppy seeds - which I don't like on rolls, for example.
But in combination with crumbly dough and creamy vanilla pudding, the little poppy seeds are at their best. Delicious!
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Taste and Occasion
Poppy seed cake with crumbles is classically a yeast cake. But I wanted a particularly fast poppy seed sheet cake - without double the work for the base and crumbles. And without a long time for the yeast dough to rise.
The result is a moist crumble cake with short pastry or kneaded dough. The crumbled dough forms both the foundation - i.e. easy to press onto the baking sheet with your hands - and the crumbly topping.
This way, you are really ready in no time. And since the dough is not rolled out, it doesn't even need to be refrigerated. The result tastes incredibly crumbly and tender. And of course, it is also quite rich - especially compared to the yeast dough variant.
The fast poppy seed cake with streusels also pleases people like me who rather have a love-hate relationship with poppy seeds 😉 !
Ingredients
The filling of the poppy seed crumble cake is a creamy poppy seed vanilla pudding. Therefore, not much of the (actually yellowish) pudding is visible in the result.
For the pudding you need ground poppy seeds or steamed poppy. Normal poppy seeds would remain much too grainy and ruin the best thing 😉 .
How to make the Poppy Seed Cake
There is not too much of a secret behind making this delicious poppy seed cake. First of all, preheat your oven to 375°F / 190°C and cover a deep baking sheet (approx. 11*16 inches / 29*42 cm) with baking paper.
Prepare the filling first. For this, put vanilla pudding powder into a small amount of milk and let it dissolve. Bring the remaining milk and cream to a boil in a saucepan. As soon as the milk boils, add sugar and mixed custard powder and let it simmer for a short minute while stirring.
Now remove it from the heat. Stir in ground poppy seeds and lemon grated lemon juice. Then, put the filling aside.
For the kneading dough, put all ingredients in a bowl and use the dough hooks of the food processor to make a dough. If necessary, work briefly with your hands.
Depending on whether the base should be thicker or you want more crumbles, spread about ½ to ⅔ of the dough with your hands on the bottom of the baking sheet. Spread the poppy seed mixture over it.
Now, use your fingers to form crumbles with the remaining dough and pour them evenly over the poppy seed pudding.
Bake the cake for about 30 minutes. Still warm from the oven, the poppy-seed cake with pudding and sprinkles tastes amazingly rich. Admittedly, however, it is still relatively crumbly and unstable. So you should let it cool down a little before you cut it into pieces and enjoy it…
Top Tip
If you like it a little "lighter", you can combine the poppy seed pudding and half of the crumble dough from today's recipe with a regular yeast dough.
Recipe Card
German Poppy Seed Cake with Streusel
Ingredients
For the base and streusel
- 600 grams (5 cups) all-purpose flour
- 200 grams (1 cups) sugar
- 400 grams (2 cups) butter , cold and in small pieces
- 2 eggs, medium-sized
- 17 grams (2 tablespoon) baking powder, 1 small bag
For the filling
- 900 milliliters (4 cups) milk
- 200 milliliters (1 cups) cream
- 35 grams (5 tablespoon) vanilla pudding powder, 2 small bags
- 160 grams (1 cups) sugar
- 1 teaspoon grated lemon zest , optional
- 280 grams (1 ⅓ cups) ground poppy , or steam poppy
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 375°F / 190°C . Cover a deep baking sheet (approx. 11*16 inches / 29*42 cm) with baking paper. Prepare the filling first. For this, put the vanilla pudding powder into a small part of the milk and dissolve. Bring the remaining milk and cream to a boil in a saucepan. As soon as the milk boils, add sugar and mixed custard powder and let it simmer for a short minute while stirring. Remove from heat. Stir in ground poppy seeds and lemon grated lemon juice. Put the filling aside.
- For the kneading dough, put all ingredients in a bowl and use the dough hooks of the food processor to make a dough. If necessary, work briefly with your hands.
- Depending on whether the base should be thicker or you want more crumbles, spread about ½ to ⅔ of the dough with your hands on the bottom of the baking sheet. Spread the poppy seed mixture over it. Crumble the remaining dough with your fingers to form crumbles and pour evenly over the poppy seed pudding. Bake the cake for about 30 minutes. Leave to cool on the baking sheet.
Ingredient substitutions
Similar Recipes
If you have acquired a taste for it, try out my other poppy seed recipes. The lemon cake with poppy seeds or alternatively my fructose-free lemon poppy cake.
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