Hunza Walnut Cake: Where to Try the Famous Slice

Hunza walnut cake is not a regular sponge cake with nuts stirred in. It's built around a thin, crisp base topped with a dense layer of walnuts bound together with caramelised honey, closer to a nut tart or baklava in texture than to a birthday cake. It has become one of the things visitors specifically go looking for in Karimabad, alongside apricot jam and dried fruit.

Where the cake comes from

The cake most associated with the name is served at Café de Hunza, a long-running café on the road through Karimabad, trading since 1998 by its own account and now well known enough that it markets the cake and its own jams, walnut oil and Hunza tea by mail order under its own name. It sits on a terrace with a view across the valley toward Baltit Fort, and the walnut cake is what most visitors order first, along with coffee or the local Hunza tea.

The cake itself draws on ingredients Hunza has always had in quantity: walnuts, grown throughout the valley, and honey, rather than imported chocolate or vanilla sponge. That is really why it exists as a local specialty at all, and why other cafés in Karimabad and further up the valley in Gulmit have added their own versions to the menu over the years, alongside the wider range of Hunza-grown apricots, mulberries and dried fruit sold in the bazaar. Our post on shopping in Karimabad covers where to buy dried fruit and nuts to take home.

Walnut trees are common across Hunza's terraced orchards, planted alongside apricot and mulberry, and the nuts are harvested in autumn and dried for use through the rest of the year. That's part of why the cake, and walnut oil alongside it, are sold as valley produce rather than as something brought in from outside; a shop selling walnut cake in Karimabad is usually also selling shelled walnuts, walnut oil and dried apricots from the same source.

What it actually tastes like

Expect a firm, slightly chewy top layer of walnuts set in caramelised honey, over a thin, crisp pastry-like base. It's rich and quite sweet, sold by the slice or, if you want to take one home, as a whole cake, which travels reasonably well if kept flat and cool for a day or two.

It pairs well with something plain to cut the sweetness: black tea, Hunza's own salted butter tea if you want to try the local version, or a straightforward black coffee. Most cafés serving it will offer all three, and a slice with a pot of tea is a common late-afternoon stop for visitors walking back from Baltit Fort.

Where to try it in Karimabad

• Café de Hunza, on the main road through Karimabad, is the cake's best-known home, with rooftop and terrace seating looking out over the valley.
• Other cafés along the Karimabad bazaar road now serve their own walnut cake, of varying quality; asking your guesthouse for a current recommendation is more reliable than any fixed list, since cafés open and close.
• If you're staying further up the valley, cafés in Gulmit also sell walnut cake, useful if you don't want to make a special trip back down to Karimabad for it.

A few practical notes

Walnut cake keeps reasonably well without refrigeration for a day or two, which makes it a realistic thing to buy as a gift to take home, alongside the valley's dried apricots and walnuts. Prices vary by café, and a whole cake to travel with costs more than a single slice; treat any figure quoted online as a rough guide rather than current pricing, and ask when you order. If you have a nut allergy in your group, be aware that this is not a cake you can order without the nuts, since they are the filling rather than a garnish.

Our guide to Gilgit and Hunza has more on where to eat and stay in Karimabad if this is part of a wider valley trip.

Frequently asked questions