Torta de Santiago, An Ode to Walking the Camino
a humble, everyday cake
Sweet friends, hello! Happy Sunday and welcome to a well overdue new recipe post — it’s been far too long! You might remember from May’s MM post that I mentioned I wanted to start sharing recipes to the blog inspired by my travels — and that’s exactly what I’m here to do today! Without further ado, please allow me to introduce the humble Torta de Santiago: a lightly sweetened, almondy, airy AF cake that originates from the Galicia region of Spain. I figured this would be the perfect recipe to kickstart my Ode To… series with because Wednesday of next week — May 28th, to be exact 😉 — marks a whole 11-years since my bestie and I set out to start walking the Camino!
If you’re walking the French Way, Galicia is the last region you pass through en route to Santiago — assuming you’ve walked from the beginning like a true pilgrim! — , so pilgrims don’t usually get to sample this delightful bake until fairly close to the end of their Camino, usually sometime in the last five days. According to my journal, Bestie & I stopped for our first slices of torta on day 30, somewhere between the Galician towns of O Cebreiro and Triacastela. I don’t know if it’s because we were having such a wonderful walk after a particularly grueling slog up a never-ending hill the day beforehand — but I distinctly remember how delicious that first bite was: citrus-y, almond-y, and incredibly moist (sorry/not sorry).
Truth be told, I’ve been meaning to share this recipe to the blog basically since the day we arrived back in Ireland. I’ve literally had this draft wasting away on my dashboard for the last 11-years and I cannot begin to tell you how happy I am to finally be hitting the publish button! I hope you join me in baking this humble recipe, and I really hope you enjoy these recipes inspired by my travels — I have a few more up my sleeve for the coming months!
PS! When I was researching this post, the internet tried to convince me that this bake should technically be called Tarta de Santiago instead of Torta, but I definitely noted it down in my Camino journal as Torta — so I’m stubbornly gonna stick to my guns on this one.
Happy baking! xo
torta de santiago
PREP: 10-minutes
COOK: 30-minutes
TOTAL: 1-hour 15-minutes, including cooling
YIELD: 9-inch cake, 8 slices
ingredients
4 eggs
200g caster sugar
200g ground almonds
finely grated zest of 1 lemon
finely grated zest of 1 orange
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon almond extract
generous pinch of salt
icing sugar, to dust
directions
Preheat the oven to 180°C; butter entirely and line the base of a 9-inch round spring-form tin with baking parchment.
Using an electric whisk, combine the eggs & sugar in a large bowl, beating until voluminous and very pale in colour, about 2-3 minutes.
Using a spatula, gently fold in the ground almonds, lemon zest, orange zest, cinnamon, almond extract and salt. Mix everything together until just combined, being careful not to deflate the eggs too much. Scrape the batter into the prepared tin, smooth the top, and bake in the preheated oven for 30-minutes, or until lightly golden, risen, and springy to the touch.
When the cake comes out of the oven, run a knife around the edges to ensure nothing sticks, and leave the cake to cool in the tin 20-minutes before turning onto a wire rack to cool completely.
Before serving, use a sieve to cover the cake entirely with a generous dousing of icing sugar. Serve in generous slices with a dollop of whipped cream.
notes
although traditionally made with just ground almonds, I have also made this cake with 60% almonds and 40% plain flour when I ran out of almonds and it tasted just as good!
if you’re so inclined, you can make your Torta de Santiago even more authentic by topping it with the Cross of St James, like I did for the photos. I googled a picture of the cross, traced it onto some baking parchment, and carefully cut it out using a blade. Top the cake with the stencil pre-icing sugar shower and carefully remove it when you’re done - et voila!
related posts
Walking the Camino de Santiago, A Photo Guide
Lime Loaf Cake | An Everyday Cake
Buttermilk Cake with Chocolate Fudge Frosting
Delicioso! ;)