The famous Mallorquin almond cake

This delightful cake is from Majorca where almond trees grow in abundance and it has remained as original Islander heritage, is the result of symbiosis between French cuisine, which brought the art of cooking, and Mallorca, which, with large almond crops, provided the raw material. And so le gâteau d’amandes became “gató d’ametlles”.

Ingredients for the Majorcan Almond Cake

• 200g ground almonds.
• 200g caster sugar
• 5 large eggs
• Zest of half a lemon
• ½ teaspoon ground cinnamon.

Method

This Mallorquin favourite is great to make when the new seasons ground almonds come to market. In the Olivar Market they retail at 9€ a kilo but personally we think it’s worth paying a little extra for the flavour.

1. Preheat oven to 170c
2. Separate the eggs
3. Grease a 25cm cake tin with butter and lightly dust with flour.
4. Beat sugar and egg yolks together until pale and fluffy
5. Carefully, fold cinnamon, lemon zest and almonds into the sugar and eggs mixture.
6. Whisk egg whites until very stiff,
7. With a large metal spoon, stir 2 large spoonful of the egg white into the almond mixture. This will stabilise the mixture and make the next step easier.
8. Then carefully fold the remaining egg whites, ensuring that you don’t knock the air out.
9. Pour the mixture into the prepared cake tin (up end the bowl and let the mixture carefully drop in – then just get the last bits out with a spatula). This will make sure that you don’t lose the air. Carefully smooth the surface.
10. Bake for 40 minutes.
11. Leave cake in tin to cool before serving and dust with icing sugar.
12. Serve with almond ice cream.

Ingredients for the Almond Ice Cream

• 250g ground almonds
• 1 litre of water
• 300g caster sugar
• Zest 1 lemon
• 1 tsp ground cinnamon

Method

1. Place all of the ingredients into a saucepan and keep stirring as you bring very slowly to the boil.
2. Remove from the heat and allow to cool.
3. Place in an ice cream maker if you have one, until smooth.
4. If not place in a plastic container in the freezer and mix well every hour whilst it freezes to avoid crystallization.
5. Transfer to a plastic container and free