The Yummiest Cake in Hunza Valley — is it Cafe De Hunza’s Walnut Cake or ….. ?
Drumrolls, we announce the results of a family tasting spree searching for the yummiest cake in the Hunza valley (July 2021). If you go by the current citations, Cafe De Hunza’s (Location) is on the bucket list of every traveler to Hunza Valley. Its iconic Walnut Cake’s is a crowd puller and no traveler leaves the valley without taking a bite, in fact if you didn’t partake in the ritual of visiting Cafe De Hunza and ordering a slice of their acclaimed Walnut Cake, you didn’t visit Hunza at all. We paid our respect within a couple of hours after landing in Karimabad and were the first customer at 11 am on day after bakra-Eid. We also decided to talk to the locals and find out what else is available in the Valley for a savory pastry to go with a nice cup of tea.
Hunza is a valley with is spread over approximately 4,500 square miles (11,600 square kilometers). It consists of multiple small and large towns and some fairy tale valleys (Chapursan, Shimshal etc). Karimabad (aka Baltit) is the main town in the Valley and its main bazaar is a favorite tourist hangout, the equivalent of The Mall in Murree but 10 times cleaner. Cafe De Hunza is located close to one end of the Karimabad Bazaar.
So lets get back to the business of figuring out some of the best cakes in Hunza Valley.
The Walnut Cake at Cafe De Hunza (location)
Our Description: At the center of the cake you will find a savoy filling of ample walnuts dipped in a sugary sauce. This filling is crunchy, gooey, not so sweet with jut the right balance. It is surrounded by brittle shell with a texture and taste close to a pie shell. A cake is supposed to be a bit on the softer side and less brittle. We brought one to Lahore and had a hard time cutting a clean slice with even with a very sharp bread knife.
Taste: With a cup of milky tea or better with a gulp of local Hunza green tea, it is simply awesome.
Verdict: It is a Walnut Pie impersonating as a Cake! Perhaps it should be called a CaPie (Cake-Pie). Our team of four novice food connoisseurs just could not call this a cake. It is Pie hiding in a Cake for God’s sake.
Score: 8/10
The Apricot Cake at Glacier Breeze Cafe (location)
Glacier Breeze is a nice little Cafe with perhaps the best view of any eating establishment in Hunza valley. Tucked on its own small hill, across from the Passu Cones and Cathedral with a gorgeous backdrop of mountains that house the Batura glacier and a large stream of water originating form the glacier, you cannot ask for a better surroundings. Just hang out on its terrace and enjoy the views and the ambiance. You can either park your car upfront and go up about 40+ stairs (we went there twice and one time we had the company of local sheep going up the stairs, pretty awesome)or take a dirt strip that goes to the back of the cafe and then you are only left with a mere 10 steps to reach the Cafe.
You have some stunning views of the Passu Cones from the Cafe terrace.
Now to the cake.
Our Description: The Glacier Breeze Apricot cake is close to a perfect embodiment of a cake, soft, moist and freshly baked. You chew on to it and when your bite finds an apricot in the cake, it is heavens.
Taste: We tried it both with local Hunza green tea and regular milk tea and it was perfect with both.
Verdict: This is superbly balanced cake that will appeal to a wide range of tastes. We wished that there were a few more apricots embedded in the cake. Some of our bites didn’t find an apricot and that was frustrating for the palette.
Score: 8.5/10 (a bit more apricot in the cake and it would have scored a 9)
The Walnut Cake and Ice Creme at “The Walnut — Rakaposhi view point” (location)
Well this is a bit out of the Hunza Valley and is located in Rakaposhi Veiw point, N-35, Ghulmet Nagar, Ghulmet on the highway going to Hunza valley. It is about 30 KM from Karimabad. So take a break getting in or out of Karimabad/Hunza, enjoy a good cake along with a scoop of ice creme (more on it in a bit) and have a spectacular view of the Rakaposhi mountain (7,788 meters high or just over 25,000 feet). The master chef and owner at The Walnut is Aabe Ali, who got some of his training in Dubai.
You can choose a slice form the Walnut Cake or their Walnut Cake with Chocolate. Both are delicious. Unlike Cafe De Hunza’s Walnut CaPie, a slice of Walnut cake at this cafe looks like, smells like and tastes like a Cake. These cakes are doughnut shaped and have plenty of the real deal, I mean walnuts. I sipped a Latte while partaking a slice of this cake and enjoyed it.
Our Description: A slice from doughnut shaped cake has plenty of walnuts in it. It comes both in plain and chocolate form. My son really liked the chocolate version but then he has a big bias towards anything chocolate!
Taste: I had it with a Latte and it tasted great. There were plenty of walnuts in each bite and a few twirls in the mouth before sending it down the stomach was a treat. My daughter tried it over vanilla ice creme and that combination worked well too (see picture above and some description below).
Verdict: Although we tried this on our way back from Hunza, it was worth the stop. We finally had a real Walnut Cake after all. The ice creme at this Cafe is home made (available in chocolate and vanilla only), smooth and has an expensive feel to it, not the banaspati (vegetable oil) aftertaste so common to the ‘brick in the Walls’ type ice-cremes found aplenty in super markets and stores all over Pakistan (these vegetable oil bricks have infested even the Northern areas). So get a scoop or two when you stop here and feed them to your kids so they can appreciate what a real ice creme tastes like ! This is perhaps some of the best ice creme you will find in the Hunza or anywhere on the KKH.
Score: Walnut cake and its chocolate brother 8/10, ice creme (8.5/10)
What we could not taste :(
Our local friend Ali Aman Gojal in Gulmit told us about a yummy Mulberry cake sold at a shop next to Hussaini suspension bridge but we could not locate it.
The Final Verdict
Drum rolls, taste for taste my vote for best cake in Hunza Valley or anywhere along the KKH goes to the Apricot Cake at Glacier Breeze next to Passu Cathederal. Sorry Cafe De Hunza but you missed the gold by a mere 0.5 points. Cafe De Hunza does get the gold for the best Walnut Pie (CaPie — defined as a pie masquerading as a cake) in the region and ties with Walnut Cake at, of course, at The Walnut Cafe.
But really try any of these three and you will have a savory day. Enjoy all of these on your next trip to Hunza and you will be in heavens.
