Spain·Galicia·Santiago de Compostela
Tarta de Santiago
Santiago almond cake
A flourless almond cake, moist and fragrant, decorated with the Cross of St James in icing sugar.
- Preparation
- 15 min
- Cooking
- 35 min
- Total time
- 1 h 20 min
- Difficulty
- Easy
- Servings
- 8
Cooling: 30 min
Ingredients
Tap an ingredient to tick it off.
Preparation
Tips
- There is no flour: the cake gets its texture from the almonds, so use fresh, good-quality ground almonds.
- Beat the eggs and sugar well; that is what lightens a batter so dense with almonds.
- Decorate only when the cake is completely cold, or the icing sugar will dissolve and the cross will lose its sharpness.
Variations
- Some recipes use toasted almonds instead of raw ones for a more intense flavour.
- It is common to flavour it with lemon zest, cinnamon or a splash of liqueur, always discreetly.
Story of the recipe
Tarta de Santiago: where it comes from.
A 1577 reference to a «torta real» made with almonds is often cited as a forerunner, and some sources place the first known printed recipe in a pastry manual from 1838. The details of these attributions vary by source, so they should be taken with caution.
The Cross of St James decoration is attributed to a pastry shop in Santiago that began decorating its cakes this way in 1924. Today the Tarta de Santiago has Protected Geographical Indication (PGI) status, which requires it to be based on almonds, sugar and eggs.
Sources
By RecetarioMundo.