The Santiago cake or also known as tarta de Santiago de Compostela is the favourite Spanish Almond cake for all the visitors in the Iberian Peninsula and also for most of the Spaniards. The tarta de Santiago is famous for being one of the best Spanish desserts and even though it is originally from the north and most typical from Santiago de Compostela, you can find it and eat it everywhere in Spain.
Tarta de Santiago recipe
Many visitors come to Spain every year just to do the Santiago walk, the famous “Camino de Santiago” and after hours, days, and sometimes weeks or even months walking, most of the people agree with the same point, one of the best things and what makes them forget about the pain of walking during the whole day, was trying the Santiago cake in the different restaurants. The only problem is that they come back home thinking that they don´t want to be walking miles and miles to be able to try this delicious Spanish dessert. That is the reason why we are going to teach you the famous recipe for tarta de Santiago:
Santiago cake ingredients
- 250g of ground almonds
- Lemon zest (Half)
- Powdered and icing sugar
- 1 tablespoon of Cinnamon
- 5 eggs
- Butter to grease the tin cake
Santiago cake recipe
- Preheat the oven to 160 ºC or 180 ºC
- In a large bowl, after grinding the almonds, place them with powdered sugar, lemon zest and cinnamon, add the eggs and mix them all together.
- Grease with butter a cake tin of about 26-30 cm.
- Place the mix into the pan and bake it for 35 minutes, until the cake is brown and firm.
- At the same time, to decorate the cake, print a drawing of the Santiago cross.
- Last of all, place the cross on the centre and dust it with caster sugar
- Remove the cross and you are ready to serve!
Tarta de Santiago cake,
Mercadona or Carrefour
Not our favourite option, not for most of the people. The Santiago almond cake is always better when it´s done in a traditional way, when is cooked as a homemade dessert. Sometimes there is not enough time to start cooking and buying the cake in a good pastry shop can get a little bit expensive. So, if you need with desperation a tarta de Santiago, you can always visit one of these supermarkets and get one to go. It is not as good as a homemade one, but it may surprise you and you will probably enjoy it anyway.
Tarta de Santiago cake history
Although the origin of the tarta de Santiago is not really well known, it is said that during the middle ages, the almond was really expensive and only a few could purchase them.
That said, the first news from something similar to this Spanish almond cake is from 1577, when Pedro do Porto visit the Santiago university and try the “torta real” which was had similar ingredients to the actual tarta de Santiago.
The first recipes are from Bartolomé de Leybar in 1838. And the Santiago cross started being popular in 1924, they used it in Galicia to decorate the dessert.