Almond Tart
Also known as: Algarve almond tart
A golden tart of flaked almond and egg-rich cream — the Algarve's almond groves in a slice.
- Origin
- Regional tart · Algarve · rooted in the centuries-old culture of Algarve almonds
- Region
- Algarve
- Season
- Year-round
The almond tart is the everyday Algarve sweet that doubles as a celebration cake: a shortcrust (or puff) base filled with a soft mixture of almond, sugar, eggs and butter, blanketed in almond flakes that toast in the oven until golden and crisp. As it comes out, the smell of roasted almond fills the kitchen.
It is an unshowy sweet, yet deeply of the Algarve: it grows out of the land of the almond trees, the trees scattered among figs and carobs that paint the hills white at winter's end. It is cut into generous slices, served with coffee or after a meal, and found as readily in a neighbourhood pastelaria as on a festive table.
Among the Algarve's almond sweets it is the most unpretentious, and perhaps for that reason the best loved: it needs no moulded paste or threads of egg to show exactly where it comes from.
- ground almonds
- flaked almonds
- sugar
- eggs
- butter
- shortcrust pastry
- lemon zest
- cinnamon
Intensely almondy and sweet without being cloying, the soft, moist filling set against a crisp base and a topping of toasted almonds. Butter lends it richness, lemon zest brightens it and cinnamon rounds it out; every bite tastes above all of roasted almond.
Some use a shortcrust base, others prefer puff pastry; some versions carry a looser egg custard, others a firmer almond paste in the manner of a frangipane. There are tarts of pure almond and others that pair almond with gila or chila pumpkin jam or egg sweets. The tarte fina, with a puff base and a very thin almond layer, is a lighter, more modern variant.
In pastry shops and bakeries across the Algarve — Faro, Loulé, Silves, Tavira, Lagos — where almost every one has its own version; in Loulé, Pastelaria Amendoal is a well-known name in regional almond pastry. Look for a genuine almond tart, generous with toasted flakes and made with regional almonds; the best is often the homemade kind, from places that still make it from scratch.
A short espresso, a tea or a glass of Algarve medronho; alongside, a Moscatel or a regional bitter-almond liqueur.
The almond tart descends directly from the culture of almond-growing in the Algarve, brought by the Arabs and documented in the region since the Middle Ages. From the 16th and 17th centuries onward, Algarve almonds earned an export reputation — they were sold above all to England, and in the markets of northern Europe, such as Belgium, they fetched high prices under the name "Faro almonds" — and became the foundation of almost all the region's sweets, from morgados to Dom Rodrigos.
The tart itself is a more domestic way of using that abundance: instead of the costly moulded paste of the convent sweets, it sets almond against a pastry base and an egg cream in a piece that is simple to make and to slice. It carries no convent name and no fixed date, but it belongs to the same family of sweets that made the Algarve the almond land par excellence.
Sources: tradicional.dgadr.gov.pt · tradicional.dgadr.gov.pt · terraruiva.pt · ensina.rtp.pt