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Recipe · Mallorcan

Gató d'Ametlla (Mallorcan Almond Cake)

Prep
20 min
Cook
45 min
Total
1 h 5 min
Serves
8 servings

Gató d’ametlla is the most Mallorcan dessert there is. A dense, moist cake made of ground almond, egg, sugar, lemon zest and a pinch of cinnamon. No flour, no baking powder — the almond is the flour, the whisked whites are the rise. What comes out of the oven sits somewhere between sponge and marzipan: golden on top, juicy underneath.

Always served with a scoop of almond ice cream on the side. The combination — warm cake and cold ice cream — is the dessert of every traditional Mallorcan restaurant. At home it appears on Sundays. In restaurants it’s on the menu all year. In bakeries it’s sold by the slice.

The difference between a passable gató and a real one is the almond. Mallorcan, freshly ground, with a touch of bitter almond if you can find it. The rest is just basic sponge technique.

Ingredients

  • 250 g ground Mallorcan almonds — a mix of bitter and sweet, ideally freshly ground
  • 6 free-range eggs — separated
  • 250 g caster sugar
  • finely grated zest of 1 Mallorcan lemon
  • 1 tsp ground cinnamon
  • 1 pinch salt
  • butter, for the tin
  • flour, for the tin
  • icing sugar, to finish
  • almond ice cream, to serve — the classic — optional but strongly recommended

Method

  1. 1

    Preheat the oven

    Heat the oven to 170 °C, top and bottom. Grease a 24 cm round tin with butter and dust lightly with flour.

  2. 2

    Yolks and sugar

    In a large bowl, whisk the yolks with half the sugar until pale and doubled in volume. Add the lemon zest and cinnamon.

  3. 3

    Almonds

    Fold in the ground almonds with a spatula until you have a dense, sandy mixture. Don't overwork it.

  4. 4

    Whisk the whites

    In a spotless bowl, whisk the whites with the salt until they start to foam. Rain in the rest of the sugar and continue whisking to firm, glossy peaks.

  5. 5

    Combine

    Stir a third of the whites into the yolk-and-almond mixture to slacken it. Fold in the rest in two batches, gently, lifting from underneath, so as not to deflate the whites.

  6. 6

    Bake

    Pour the batter into the tin and level gently. Bake for forty to forty-five minutes, until a skewer comes out clean and the surface is golden and slightly cracked.

  7. 7

    Cool and serve

    Cool for ten minutes in the tin, then turn out onto a wire rack. Once cool, dust with icing sugar. Serve in generous slices with a scoop of almond ice cream alongside.

Cook's notes

The gató is Mallorca's most Mallorcan dessert. No flour — the almond is the flour. No baking powder — whisked egg whites do the lifting. The thing that makes the difference is the almond: it has to be Mallorcan, ideally with a small proportion of bitter almond in the mix, and ideally ground that morning. Industrial pre-ground almond has oxidised oils and you taste it in the cake. The cinnamon is discreet — present, never dominant. And always, always with almond ice cream on the side: in Mallorca a gató without the ice cream is only half a gató.

Nutrition (per serving)

Calories
420 kcal
Protein
12 g
Fat
26 g
Carbs
32 g

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Rather we cooked it for you?

We serve Gató d'Ametlla (Mallorcan Almond Cake) at Restaurant Es Muntant, in Establiments. Table waiting, wood-fire on.

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