How To Make Ston Cake (Stonska Torta)

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Post author Mate

Written by our local expert Mate

Mate is Croatian and owns a transport company in the Balkans, he has visited over 30 countries. He is an expert on all things transportation as well as food and wine.

Just to set the record straight, this cake does not contain any rocks! Ston is a small town located on the Pelješac Peninsula. Mali Ston is most famous for its delicious oysters, which I was fortunate enough to try recently. On this trip, I came across the Ston cake, which immediately drew my attention as I noticed it contained penne pasta.

I thought to myself, “well, that’s different,” and subsequently ordered a piece of the Ston cake to give it a try.

I have to say I was very pleasantly surprised. I figured this would be an excellent recipe to share so you can impress your friends and family with this little-known cake recipe.

CROATIAN RECIPES - STON FIG CAKE

Ston Cake Recipe (Stonska Torta)

This Ston cake does not contain any rocks! Ston is a small town located on the Pelješac Peninsula and this local cake is made with penne pasta.

Ingredients

Filling

  • 500 g penne pasta (5 cups)
  • 250 g sugar (1 1/4 cups)
  • 100 g chocolate (3.5 oz)
  • 200 g walnuts, ground (2 cups)
  • 200 g almonds, ground (2 cups)
  • 250 g butter (16 tablespoons)
  • 6 eggs
  • 1 packet of vanilla sugar or 2 teaspoons vanilla essence
  • Cinnamon
  • 1 lemon
  • 1 teaspoon dark rum
  • 1 teaspoon oil

Cake Dough

  • 450 g all-purpose-flour (3 cups)
  • 2 eggs
  • Pinch of salt
  • 1 tablespoon olive oil

Instructions

  1. Cook the penne as per instructions and drain. Do not add any salt to the water when cooking. When the pasta has cooled, coat with olive oil, lemon juice and rum
  2. Mix together the cake dough ingredients. Be sure to rest the dough for an hour. Now take the dough and roll it out thinly making sure to have enough to cover the base of your cake tin and enough to overhang the cake tin and cover the top of the cake
  3. Grease the cake tin with oil and flour and then carefully place the dough inside making sure there is around 10 cm hanging over the sides
  4. In a bowl mix the grated chocolate, ground almond, walnut, sugar, vanilla sugar, cinnamon and lemon rind
  5. In a separate bowl beat the six eggs
  6. Now place a layer of the cake mix on the base and then on top of the cake mix layer some of the penne pasta. Following the penne you will need to add a coating of the beaten eggs and 1/3 of your butter cut into pieces
  7. Repeat this process until you have used up all of the ingredients
  8. Give the cake tin a little tap to help the cake settle
  9. Using the excess dough hanging over the edge of the tin, cover the top of the cake. Gently compress the dough to level the cake
  10. Brush the dough with butter and place in a pre-heated oven at 180 degrees and cook for 45 minutes
  11. When the cake has cooled, turn the cake over onto your serving dish and the bottom of the cake will become the top
  12. Dust the cake with icing sugar and serve
CROATIAN RECIPES - STON FIG CAKE

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Comments (12)

  1. Thought my waiter at Kapetanova Kupa said macaroon cake. Shocked when I saw the macaroni, but it was delicious. Would definitely order it again.

    Also Ston is a great little town to visit. The Great Wall of Ston is an underpublicized gem.

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