Poppy seed cake and a certain horror movie

I am a coward when it comes to watching horror movies – I usually spend 2/3 of them with my eyes closed – but I am a kid from the 70s and therefore was more than curious to watch the remake of one of the movies that scared the bejeesus out of me back in the day.

I would never do such thing alone, so my husband was in charge of holding my hands whenever necessary – he also had memories of Carol Anne and the scary TV from 1982.

All I can say is that aside from a couple of jumps I wasn’t too frightened or impressed: the movie isn’t all that – maybe remakes aren’t as good as the originals or maybe I have seen too many of James Wan’s movies. :)

Choosing movies to watch might be tricky: one can find something really good or something not so great, and I believe it is the same with recipes: we can’t really tell they’re good until we’ve tried them. I made this cake because I had a couple of egg whites to spare – because of these wonderful cookies – and it turned out to be a great recipe: the cake is very light in texture and tender, perfect with a cup of tea or coffee.

Poppy seed cake
slightly adapted from 100 Best Cakes and Desserts

Cake:
125g unsalted butter, softened
finely grated zest of 1 lime
1 tablespoon honey
1 tablespoon lime juice
1 ¼ cups (250g) granulated sugar, divided use
1 egg yolk
250ml whole milk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
250g all purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
pinch of salt
3 tablespoons poppy seeds
4 egg whites

Icing:
½ cup (70g) icing sugar
1 tablespoon lime juice

Preheat the oven to 180°C/350°F. Butter and flour a 2-liter Bundt pan.
In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, salt and poppy seeds. Set aside.
Using an electric mixer, beat the butter, lime zest, honey, lime juice and 1 cup (200g) of the sugar until creamy. Beat in the egg yolk, milk and vanilla – don’t worry if the mixture looks a little curdled at this stage. Add the dry ingredients and mix well.

In a separate bowl, beat the egg whites until stiff peaks form. Add the remaining ¼ cup (50g) sugar and beat until satiny. Gently fold the egg white mixture into the cake mixture, then pour into the prepared pan.
Bake for about 45 minutes or until a skewer inserted into the middle comes out clean. Cool in the pan over a wire rack for 15 minutes, then carefully unmold onto rack and cool completely.

Glaze: sift the icing sugar in a bowl and gradually stir in the lime juice, mixing until you get a drizzable consistency. Set aside for 15 minutes.

Serves 8-10