As a child I would be excited to find a sugary sweet poppy seed yeast snail in my school lunch bag. It was one of those treats, made with poppy seed paste, which one could barely resist and I would always finish mine with gusto. Every single time I would have a poppy seed piece of heaven, I would have small poppy seeds stuck in-between my teeth, which would be difficult to remove and because they were black it was always funny for the whole class to see my transparent braces full of tiny black dots.
At a certain point it became so embarrassing that I stopped asking my mum to pack poppy seed snails for my school break time. The black European poppy seeds were stubbornly decorating my smile, and this wasn’t good! So I ended up proclaiming my love for poppy seed snails in the dark and swallowed one by one in my comfortable home.
Back then I had no clue that white shaded poppy seeds existed. To be honest you will never be able to buy white poppy seeds in regular markets in Austria. Most probably white poppy seeds can be bought in specialized Asian stores in Europe, or so I believe…
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Oh, how useful these white poppy seeds could have been, especially at the time when I was wearing braces. Nobody would have noticed the poppy seeds stuck in the braces.
In Asia, or to be more precise in India, one rarely comes across white poppy seeds. In fact I have been trying to find black poppy seeds and I was told by shop owners that black poppy seeds were not available in Goa.
If you live in India, have you been able to buy black poppy seeds?
Poppy seeds are not just common in Asia but all over the world. Former Austrian-Hungarian countries have a rich sweet poppy seed food tradition. In Austria Poppy seed pastes are popular and commonly used in sweet cakes etc. Nowadays people tend to buy the ready made paste version instead of making it at home and in fact just recently my friend sent me some black poppy seed paste from Germany (thank you Anja! <3).
With the commercial black poppy seed paste from Europe, I felt inspired to fiddle about. Since we only get the white poppy seeds here in Goa I decided to create a white poppy seed paste recipe from scratch. As you can see in the picture underneath, the black commercial poppy seed paste is more glossy. That’s because they add gelling agents to preserve better.
To make Poppy seed paste is actually quite easy and the paste can be used in all kinds of sweet cake desserts. I will be sharing a cookie recipe soon made with poppy seed paste but besides that you could also use the poppy seed paste in…
- yeast braids and poppy seed snails
- sweet Strudel
- Stollen
- different simple cake mixtures
- Torte layer
- Knödel (sweet dumplings)
- homemade sweet dessert noodles
To make the poppy seed filling takes about 10 minutes max. Basically, the poppy seeds are ground fine before being cooked with milk, sugar and other ingredients.
In India, poppy seeds (khuskhus in hindi) are frequently used to thicken savory and spicy curries. Before throwing the whole poppy seeds into a curry, the poppy seeds are dry roasted in a pan to allow the typical oily poppy seed flavors to emerge. The dry roasting of poppy seeds is rarely seen in Europe and I am not sure why because I think roasting the poppy seeds before using them in foods can only enhance the flavor of the dish.
So, I dry roasted one batch of white poppy seeds before grinding and turning them into a paste, and another batch of white poppy seeds was not dry roasted before the seeds were turned into a paste. The result: The flavor of the dry roasted poppy seed paste was more intense, so I suggest to dry roast white poppy seeds, however I am not sure if the same goes with the black poppy seed variation. We will have something to try my friends!
Oh and before I forget… The poppy seeds need to be freshly ground to turn them into a paste. That’s because poppy seeds are rich in oils and tend to get spoiled faster if left standing. Also, when poppy seeds are ground freshly they tend to be more intense in flavor.
- 100 grams Poppy Seeds
- 170 milliliter Milk
- 50 grams Sugar
- 20 grams Semolina
- pinch Salt
- ½ Tablespoon Vanilla sugar
- 1½ Tablespoon Rum
- First dry roast your poppy seeds over high heat, while shaking the pan, until you get a whiff of warm poppy seeds.
- Grind the poppy seeds thine.
- Add the poppy seeds to a non stick sauce pan and pour in ⅔ of the milk. Mix over slow heat and add all the other ingredients (sugar, semolina, salt, vanilla sugar, rum and the remaining milk) once the content starts to bubble.
- Continue to cook over low heat and keep on stirring until the content turns into a thick paste consistency.
- Let cool and further use for cookies and cakes.
According to me, black and white poppy seeds taste differently. The black poppy seeds from Europe tend to be more intense in flavor. It’s hard to explain but I kind of feel the black ones have a bit of a nutty after flavor compared to the white ones. Otherwise I don’t know if they are much different. It could be that the white poppy seeds are stronger in certain ways.
A few months ago, before traveling to Europe, I had planned taking white poppy seeds to Europe for my family to try, but the shop owners kept on telling me here in Goa that taking even the smallest quantities of white poppy seeds out of India was not allowed. So my question is: Are white poppy seeds stronger then black poppy seeds?
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Mmmhhh, wonderful! Perfect when used as filling in beigli.
Cheers,
Rosa
I love poppy seeds! Poppy seed cake is one of the best going. Never made a paste with them, though, and I don’t think I’ve even tasted it. Really interesting recipe and post! Thanks.
Wow I love poppy seed in desserts, this paste would be pretty handy 😀
Never tried it but I intend to now!
Cheers
Choc Chip Uru
Wow, it is not often I come across a recipe where I think “I have NEVER seen this before”! Thanks for this! I love the idea of jarring it up to have on hand 🙂
wow, I didnt know this was even possible. I could use this paste in so many things! I love it!
Seems delicious. Just waiting to try it out ; just in time to add some flip to our christmas cookies.
yeah just in time as you said it in connection with the Christmas cookies! 😉
When I visit Europe and especially when I visited Ukraine, there are desserts everywhere filled with poppy seeds. I remember sitting in a tiny coffee house with a country marker right in the middle of the cafe that once was the border between Poland and Ukraine. I ate my first pastry with poppy seeds there. I’ve loved them ever since.
They are so flavorful Helen. Love using poppy seeds in many dishes.
You know, my mom would grind poppy seed dessert, need to ask her for the recipe.
That is so interesting! I had no idea that there was white poppy seeds! You learn something new every day 😀
I’ve never noticed the difference in strength between the black and white poppy seeds but I’ll be sure to focus on it next time I have some.
I definitely know what you mean though about them getting stuck in between your teeth, it looks awful especially if you’re out and about without a toothpick. Like you I avoid those when out in public.
Nice recipe I’ll have to try this.
I’ve never heard of poppy seed paste but I can see how it could be used lots of baked goods. I do love poppy seeds so I can imagine the intensity of this paste.
I have never seen white poppy seeds before! I wonder why you could not take them out of India? I am not a huge fan of poppy seeds but in a paste I am sure they are much better than when left whole 🙂
That’s a good DIY post…we use poppy seed paste heavily in certain Andhra and Tamilian Dishes..and there are even special sweets made with it..it’s a compulsory pantry ingredient..:)
I love a good DIY! I made my own tahini using sesame seeds… so I know this one is a good recipe for poppy seed paste too. Love doing it at home and saving money. 🙂
thanks for the wonderful informative and helpful post.
In Karnataka we make ‘gasgase payasa’ poppy seed kheer and yes we use it kurmas and other savory dishes too.I just love the flavor it adds and the tiny bite it adds in certain dishes.
I think that it’s probably not that it’s illegal to take the seeds out of the country, as it is to take them into some nearby countries. Saudi Arabia, UAE, and Singapore have total bans on poppy, in one of those countries (I think the UAE) a traveller was jailed for having poppy seeds (or supposedly just one single seed) on his clothes! Maybe they heard that story passed down through a few people?
There’s also a Turkish poppy seed paste (haşhaş ezmesi) that’s just plain ground poppy seeds. Not sure whether it’s roasted or not first. The one I got from the store is a light brown, a bit darker than the paste in the picture where you’re pouring in the milk.
Dear Helene Dsouza, I live in Romania and here are used heavily poppy seeds as such, and rarely poppy seed paste. In fact, I did not even know what’s poppy seed paste. But recently I bought a book for Christmas cakes and there I found some cakes using “poppy seed paste.” I started looking: what does it mean? In certain areas of Romania are often uses a homemade paste such as a cream, but much simpler. It is used as a filling for cakes. Boil the poppy seeds in milk with sugar and vanilla until thick. Also these seeds sprinkled on cakes (“cozonac” as a Panetone Italian, but traditional Romanian) or added to cakes. Glad I found here how to prepare pasta poppy.
Sorry for my English!
Hi Criss, thanks for your message 🙂
Yes you use the Poppy seed paste for cakes such as in this poppy seed Stollen. It’s a delicacy around Christmas and basically poppy seed paste can be used in all kinds of baked cakes and breads. For example you could use it to make yeast breads or sweets such as “snails”. Poppy seed paste gives flavor and makes it all the more interesting. no worries your English is fine btw. 😉
I’m going to try it! How lond do you think it can be conserved in the fridge?
Thanks in advance!
Miguel, I think you can keep it up to a week max in the fridge (cool dairy compartment), however, it might get a bit hard during that time in the fridge, so it makes sense to use it up as soon as possible. Eventually, you could freeze the poppy seed paste too but then defrosting it might be not so nice because the paste can get soggy.