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Cooking legend Claudia Roden shares her recipe for the perfect almond cake, from her latest book 'The Food of Spain'.

Almond Cake

This splendid almond cake (Tarta de Santiago) is found in every pastry shop in Santiago de Compostela, the final destination of the famous Christian pilgrimage route through Northern Spain. It is however originally a Jewish Passover cake, containing no flour.

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Tips and techniques

1. For best results use blanched almonds and grind them yourself, but you can also buy ground almonds
2. Claudia uses a few drops of almond essence to enhance the flavour of the almonds
3. The eggs are separated so that the whites can be beaten to make the cake lighter
4. When you beat the egg-yolk mixture and add the almonds, the mixture becomes very stiff. Lighten the mixture with a dollop of the whisked egg whites, before carefully folding in the rest.

Ingredients

• 250g blanched almonds
• 6 eggs, separated
• 250g caster sugar
• Grated zest of 1 orange
• Grated zest of 1 lemon
• 4 drops almond extract
• Butter, to grease the cake tin
• Flour, to dust the cake tin
• Icing sugar, for dusting the cake

Preparation method

Grind the almonds finely in the food processor.

Beat the egg yolks with the sugar to a pale cream with an electric mixer, then beat in the orange and lemon zests and almond extract. Add the ground almonds and mix very well.

With the cleaned mixer, whisk the egg whites until stiff and fold them into the egg and almond mixture - the mixture is so thick that you need to turn it over quite a bit into the egg whites.

Grease a spring-form cake tin around 28cm in diameter (preferably non-stick) with butter and dust it with flour, then pour in the cake mixture.

Put the cake into an oven preheated to 180 degrees C/gas mark 4 for 40 minutes until it feels firm. Let it cool before turning out. Dust the top with icing sugar. If you like, cut the shape of a Santiago cross out of paper and place it int the middle of the cake before dusting with icing sugar. Then remove the paper shape.

Variations

Add 1 teaspoon of ground cinnamon to the almond and egg mixture

In Majorca, they make a similar almond cake called gato d'ametla, which is flavoured with the grated zest of 1 lemon, 1 teaspoon of ground cinnamon and sometimes a few drops of vanilla extract

In Navarre, they cover the cake with apricot jam

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