Engadine Nut Cake 🌰 – Traditional Swiss Recipe with a Soft and Caramelized Heart
A rustic and irresistible sweet with a filling of nuts, honey, and liqueur: a true autumn delight! 🍂
The Engadine Nut Cake, taken from Tempo di Ricette di Angela, is a dessert inspired by the tradition of the Engadine, a mountainous region of Switzerland. It is a closed cake with shortcrust pastry that encloses a soft and enveloping heart made of chopped nuts, honey, sugar, and liqueur. Perfect for accompanying tea, as a dessert after dinner, or as a gift for a special occasion. Preparing it is simple, but its taste is truly surprising! ✨🍰
📝 Ingredients
For the shortcrust pastry:
- 300 g of flour
- 150 g of butter
- 150 g of sugar
- 2 eggs
(With these ingredients you will get two sheets: one larger for the base and one smaller for the topping.)
For the filling:
- 1 bowl of walnut halves, coarsely chopped
- 3 tablespoons of sugar
- 2 tablespoons of honey
- 2 tablespoons of fresh cream or milk
- 1 small glass of liquor (optional, recommended rum or grappa)
👩🍳 Step by step preparation
- Prepare the shortcrust pastry: knead the flour with the chopped butter, sugar, and eggs until you get a smooth dough.
- Divide the pastry into two parts, one slightly larger than the other. Roll out both sheets.
- The larger one will be used to line the cake tin (it should slightly exceed the edges).
- The smaller one will be the cake lid.
- In a saucepan, gently heat nuts, sugar, honey, cream (or milk), and the liqueur.
- Gently stir just long enough to combine everything.
- Line a baking dish with the larger sheet, pricking the bottom with a fork.
- Pour and level the nut filling inside the cake.
- Cover with the second sheet and fold the edges to seal well.
- Prick the surface with a fork.
- Bake in a preheated oven at 180-200°C for about 30 minutes, until the surface is golden.
- Once cool, dust with powdered sugar.
💡 Useful tips:
- If you want a more intense filling, you can use pecans or add a pinch of salt to the caramel.
- The cake improves the day after: let it rest for an even richer taste!
📸 The image of the dishes is purely indicative and may not necessarily correspond exactly to the recipe
