Mondoñedo almond cake

How to make a Mondoñedo cake .

Perhaps Lugo’s most famous sweet recipe .

One of the tarts that rivals the tart of Santiago , the delicious bica of Trives , some gingerbreads , the crunchy  almond of Allariz or the pancakes .

Carlos Folgueiro, ” O Rei das Tartas “, made this cake famous and with it he put on the map the beautiful town of Mondoñedo, located in the north of the province of Lugo.

There was born another famous Galician and also a great lover of good food, Álvaro Cunqueiro, who wrote about this recipe in his book “Galician cuisine”.

It is a hearty and very, very rich dessert that, despite being made up of several layers, is really easy to cook. Of course, we have to prepare a couple of molds of about 20 centimeters in diameter (better if they are those that are easily removed from the mold). Since we are going to bake both the sponge cake that serves as the base and the cake itself.

The ingredients are those that we can find very easily, perhaps you only have trouble finding angel hair and candied fruit in a color other than red (it is advisable to mix at least one other shade so that the appearance of the cake is even more appetizing) .

If this were your case, look for one of those old grocery stores that have everything like I did and you will find them for sure.

Reserve just over an hour in the kitchen and in return prepare to enjoy the sweetest of Galician gastronomy.

Preparation of the base of the Mondoñedo cake

1. First we are going to prepare a sponge cake. For this we beat the eggs (we reserve a couple of tablespoons of beaten egg to paint the cake at the end) with 100 g. sugar until a uniform mixture is obtained. Then we incorporate the flour with the help of a spatula and with enveloping movements.
2. We preheat the oven to 200º C before baking.
3. We line a 20 cm mold with baking paper and pour the dough into it. We lower the oven temperature to 180º C and bake with temperature up and down (with air) for 20 minutes. To be able to be in the tray in the middle of the oven and with it previously hot.
4. We remove from the oven and let it cool. When the cake is warm or almost cold, we crumble it with our hands and reserve.
5. Now we go with the syrup. Heat the water in a saucepan and add the rest of the sugar and the lemon juice.
6. We stir over medium-low heat for the first few minutes, until the sugar has dissolved. At that time we raise the fire and boil 8 minutes.
7. Add the almonds and cook for 5 minutes. We drain them and reserve. With part of the syrup we drunk the migrated sponge cake. For this we first pour liquid with the help of a spoon and then stir until it is completely soaked.
8. Finally, we go with the assembly of the cake.

Final presentation of the Mondoñedo cake

1. To start we line the mold with baking paper and on this we place the puff pastry covering the entire interior well.
2. Trim the excess dough and level the edges of the cake with your hands. We save the cutouts to decorate later.
3. We put a first layer of cake to cover the entire base of the cake and equalize it with the help of a spoon. We make a new layer of angel hair and in the same way as in the previous step, smooth and spread well with a spoon or spatula.
4. Now we add the almonds until all the angel hair is covered and press them lightly until they make a practically smooth surface.
5. We decorate with crisscross strips of dough.
6. We paint with beaten egg and bake at 180ºC for 25 or 30 minutes. We allow to temper before unmolding.
7. We unmold very carefully so that it does not break due to the weight. We decorate with candied fruit and paint with syrup to give it shine.

This is one of the richest Galician cakes, and as soon as you try it you will perfectly understand why.

It is perfect as a dessert after a hearty meal and we can also keep it in the fridge to make it even tastier and add a refreshing touch.

Here you have a step by step in photos where I show how to prepare this Mondoñedo cake recipe .  Do not miss any detail so that you get a perfect cake and the first time.