Austrian pumpkin seed cake

Polish: pestki dyni
Spanish: pepitas (de calabaza)
Catalan: llavors de carbassa
Venetian: megołete
German: Kürbiskerne
Italian: semi di zucca
French: graines de potiron
Hungarian: sütőtök mag
Estonian: kõrvitsaseemned
Lithuanian: moliūgų sėklos

Styria (Steiermark) in s a region of Austria, where pumpkins grow and where people have many creative ideas how to use pumpkin seeds. I guess they must be all very healthy cause pumpkin seeds are helpful in combating many diseases. So Styrians not only cook pumpkin soup but also bake bake pumpkin seed cakes and cookies. Here is a great example: Kürbiskernkuchen, pumpkin seed cake.

100 gr pumpkin seeds
100 gr flour(*)
4 eggs
60 gr icing sugar
40 gr sugar (or vanilla sugar)
1 tablespoon rum
a pinch of cinnamon
1 tablespoon baking powder
100 gr white cuverture (or simply white chocolate)
25 gr coconut fat (copha)
(optionally: 1 tablespoon pumpkin seed oil)

1. Beat yolks with sugar and whites with icing sugar. Grind pumpkin seeds (possibly in coffee grinder)

2. Sieve flour with baking powder, cinnamon and ground seeds. Add rum. Whisk yolks with icing sugar and whites with crystal sugar (vanilla sugar). Add yolks to the flour, stir well (**) and add well beaten egg whites. bake about 30 minutes (or until the surface of the cake becomes golden) in 180C oven.

3. Prepare the icing: melt chocolate with copha (and pumpkin seed oil) in a double boiler. When icing is homogeneous and still warm, while the cake is already cool, you can start covering thr cake with a spatula. Don't be afraid of oil in the icing - it will only give a green colour to the icing.

(*)Many people use other proportions by taking less flour than pumpkin seeds but then, the cake won't grow and can be difficult to cut. But you can experiment and add only 50 or 75 gr flour.

(**) Plus, I have to tell you that the cake, instead of oily seeds, is quite dry. A good idea would be to add 1/2 cup (pumpkin seed) oil, maybe just after adding yolks to the flour, to make it a bit more moist.