You’ll find Torta de Santiago, from northwest Spain and dating back as far as the 1500s, when walking the Camino de Santiago pilgrimage. We’ve added almond flakes on top of this fragrant Galician almond cake for even more flavour and added crunch.
Galician almond cake
Serves 8-10
Ingredients
¾ cup (180g) butter, at room temperature
1 cup (220g) caster sugar
4 extra-large eggs, at room temperature
1 lemon, zested
1 orange, zested and juice
2 Tbsp (30ml) milk
⅔ cup (100g) cake flour, sifted
250g almond flour
1 packet (100g) flaked almonds, for topping
Icing sugar, for dusting
Honey, for serving
Method
- Preheat the oven to 180°C. Line a 23cm loose-bottom cake tin with baking paper and spray the sides with non-stick spray.
- Cream the butter and sugar together for about 8 minutes, or until pale yellow and fluffy. (The sugar should be almost dissolved.) Be sure to scrape the sides regularly.
- Add eggs, citrus and milk, whisking to combine. Add the dry ingredients and stir to combine.
- Pour into cake tin and top with flaked almonds. Bake for 35-40 minutes, until the cake starts to pull away from the side of the tin or a skewer inserted in the centre comes out clean.
- Cool in cake tin for 10 minutes, then unmould and cool on a wire rack.
- Dust the top of the cake with icing sugar (using a St James cross stencil, if you’d like to mimic the Galician tradition.)
- Serve topped with a drizzle of honey. Store cake in an airtight container for up to 3 days.
Recipe & styling: Liezl Vermeulen
Photography: Zhann Solomons
Also read: Seasonal peach, plum and apricot almond tart
