Cozonac with poppy seeds – Romanian sponge cake

This is an old recipe for a cake we do for Christmas or Easter. The name is COZONAC . In the shape from the photo, we name it little  old lady. Taste great and you can fill it with poppy seeds, nuts or raisins. To do this cake you need some time and is not very easy to do. So let’s begin.

Ingredients

1 kg flour

50 g yeast

7 yolks

2 whites

300 g sugar

250 g butter

1 tablespoon rum

1 teaspoon salt

500 ml milk

For the stuffing

140 g sugar

6 tablespoons water

200 g poppy seeds

1 vanilla extract

1 tablespoon cinnemon

Directions

Flour needs to be at the room temperature. So you can bring it in the kitchen one day before. Put the yolks in the middle of flour with a little salt and leave it overnight to get a darken color.  In a bowl put the yeast, a little bit of sugar and warm milk. In a big bowl put half of cup with flour and a little very hot milk and mix it together not to have lumps. After is getting a little cold (you can put a finger inside) mix it with the yeast mix till you have bubbles. Scatter flour on top, put an towel on and leave it  in a warm place till is getting twice the size. Meanwhile, mix the yolks with salt, and then with sugar till you get a foamy cream.

In the bowl you have all the flour put the yeast mix and start stirring. Add a little warm milk, the yolks, 2 whites foam beaten and the rum.  Your gone beat the dough for 30-45 minutes. If the dough is too hard add more warm milk. Put the dough in the middle of the bowl, scatter some flour on top, cover it with some napkins, and leave it for 2 – 3 hours to grow in a warm place. when the film on top of it started to crack , and the dough is done, cover your hands with butter and start making the cozonac.  From the dough stretch a sheet and on top of it put the stuffing (Stuffing = Boil the water with sugar and then add poppy seeds, vanilla extract and cinnamon ).

Put cozonac in a tray covered with butter. Put the tray in warm place for the dough to grow till the tray is full. Grease cozonac with egg  and then put it in the preheated oven at moderate fire, almost 1 hour, till they have a nice color. When they are done, let them in the tray for 20 minutes and then take them out and let them chill in a warm place. Enjoy!