Torta de Santiago
The first time I tried this deliciously moist cake was at Brindisa Spanish Foods in London’s Borough Market. It has to be the simplest cake anyone could make. A handful of ingredients, easy mixing and very little to wash up.
Being almond based makes it gluten free as well. The recipe I used is based on this one, but I’ve used orange instead of lemon zest, raw instead of white sugar (and less of it) and threw in some fragrant cardamom because I love the stuff.
Spanish history traces torta de Santiago back to the Middle Ages and by more recent tradition (in 1924 by Jose Mora Soto from Santiago de Compostela) it’s branded with St James’ cross. The actual origin may be a little hazy and uncertain but one thing for sure is it’s hard to stop at one slice. Click on the cross below to print off the stencil I’ve created.
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servings
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- 250 g ground almonds
- 200 g raw caster sugar
- 1 orange zest only, finely grated
- ¼ tsp ground cardamom
- ½ tsp cinnamon
- 5 eggs
- 1 tsp vanilla paste
- icing sugar to dust
Ingredients
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- Preheat the oven to 170°C.
- Grease and line a 20 cm springform tin.
- Combine the ground almonds, sugar, zest, cardamom and cinnamon in a mixing bowl. In a separate bowl lightly beat the eggs and vanilla until just combined. Pour the beaten eggs into the almond mixture and stir well to form a batter. Pour the batter into the prepared tin and bake the cake for 30-40 minutes, or until golden.
- Allow the cake to cool in the tin before unmoulding. When cooled completely, lay the cross stencil in the centre of the cake and dust liberally with icing sugar. Carefully remove the stencil, slice into portions and serve with double cream.
