Spanish Lemon Almond Cake / Tarta de Santiago

There's a Spanish take-away spot next to my work that sells the most delicious Spanish foods. During my pregnancy, I would go often for their manchego cheese sandwich as it was one of the few things I could eat without getting sick. They also serve amazing olives, feta cheeses, and other home-made Spanish delicacies. 

During one of my breaks I tried the only sweet cake they sell: Tarta de Santiago. The lady from the shop explained it was a traditional Spanish cake made from almond flour and lemon. I brought it back to my work and shared with a collegue who also shares my love for sweet things. We were amazed at this cake! It was incredibly moist and bursting with so much flavour.

My collegue said, "you should try to bake this!" So here is my first attempt. I plan on perfecting this recipe, so there will be more variations of this recipe to come. This recipe I found online on a Spanish food website. You will need a lot of lemon zest, and I can't live without my trusted lemon zester. After baking this cake, I cannot wait to go back to Spain and try this recipe there as well. I am actually visiting Moraira, Spain in April. Costa Del Sol, here I come!

Recipe

Recipe from Caroline's Cooking:

Ingredients:

- 4 eggs 

- 1 cup sugar 200g (caster sugar is better, if possible) 

- 2 cups almond flour 200g (or ground almonds) 

- 1 lemon zest ie from 1 lemon 

- ½ teaspoon cinnamon 

- 2 tablespoon confectioners sugar approx, to dust (icing sugar)

Instructions:

- Preheat oven to 350F/180C. Line an 8 inch/20cm round cake tin with parchment on the bottom and rub the sides with a little butter. 

- Crack the eggs into a bowl and add the sugar. Whisk the two together until well combined and starting to become lighter in color with a bit of air in the mixture. Add the almond flour/ground almonds, lemon zest and cinnamon and mix until combined, but try not to overmix and get all of the air out of the mixture. 

- Pour the mixture into the prepared cake tin and place in the preheated oven. Bake for approximately 30 minutes until a skewer inserted in the middle comes out clean. 

- Meanwhile, make the cross stencil, if not already prepared. (I omitted the stencil and just dusted the cake with confectioners' sugar) Remove the cake from the oven and allow to cool around 10-15 minutes on a cooling rack before removing the outer ring. 

- Allow it to cool completely before placing the stencil on top of the middle then dusting some confectioners sugar over the top. Carefully remove the stencil without letting the sugar fall on the area you had covered. 

- Slice and serve or store at room temperature, covered.

If you try this cake, I'm very curious to hear in the comments what you thought about it!