The island’s kitchens · Traditional
The gató d’ametlla
The gató d’ametlla is Mallorca’s flourless almond cake, light and moist from whipped eggs and the island’s almonds, dusted with icing sugar and served with almond ice cream: the dessert every good hotel kitchen on the island keeps.
Taste profile
Pair it with
A glass of Mallorcan sweet wine, or a café con leche.
Mallorca turns white with almond blossom in February, and the almond is the island’s pastry pantry: marzipan, turrón, the coca de torró and the gató, a cake with no flour at all, only ground almonds, eggs, sugar, lemon zest and cinnamon. The eggs are separated and the whites whipped, so the cake rises like a soufflé and settles into a moist crumb.
It is served everywhere from village bars to the Sant Francesc and the Son Vida, always with a scoop of almond ice cream, which the island also invented.
The home version · serves 6
Ingredients
- 6 eggs, separated
- 250 g sugar
- 250 g ground almonds
- Zest of one lemon
- 1 tsp ground cinnamon
- A pinch of salt
- Icing sugar
- Almond ice cream to serve
Method
- Beat the yolks with 200 g sugar until pale and thick; add the lemon zest and cinnamon.
- Fold in the ground almonds.
- Whisk the whites with salt and the remaining sugar to soft peaks; fold into the almond mixture in three additions.
- Pour into a buttered 24 cm tin, bake at 170 °C for 40 minutes until golden and just set.
- Cool, dust with icing sugar and serve with almond ice cream.
Where to taste it
