diff --git a/DESCRIPTION b/DESCRIPTION
index ce17a355e8..a557c1274b 100644
--- a/DESCRIPTION
+++ b/DESCRIPTION
@@ -68,6 +68,7 @@ Authors@R: c(
     person(c("Kevin", "K."), "Smith", role = "ctb"),
     person("Kirill", "Mueller", role = "ctb"),
     person("Kohske", "Takahashi", role = "ctb"),
+    person("Leonardo", "Gama", role = "ctb"),
     person("Lorenz", "Walthert", role = "ctb"),
     person("Lucas", "Gallindo", role = "ctb"),
     person("Marius", "Hofert", role = "ctb"),
diff --git a/NEWS.md b/NEWS.md
index 889b2e7ad5..24c4bc6a7d 100644
--- a/NEWS.md
+++ b/NEWS.md
@@ -24,6 +24,8 @@
 
 - Added an argument `exact` to `pandoc_to()` and `pandoc_from()` to decide whether to use/return the exact Pandoc output/input format name. If not (default), Pandoc extensions will be removed from the format name, e.g., `latex-smart` will be treated as `latex`.
 
+- For `python` code chunks, objects can be cached using the Python package **dill**. This currently requires the patch in **reticulate** https://github.com/rstudio/reticulate/pull/1210, and should be considered experimental before the patch is accepted and a new version of **reticulate** is released (thanks, @leogama, #2170).
+
 ## BUG FIXES
 
 - Plot created outside of `knit()` could sneak into `knit_child()` results (thanks, @niklaswillrich, #2166).
diff --git a/R/block.R b/R/block.R
index 994c82a874..898a1d5435 100644
--- a/R/block.R
+++ b/R/block.R
@@ -93,14 +93,14 @@ call_block = function(block) {
     }
     hash = paste(valid_path(params$cache.path, label), digest(content), sep = '_')
     params$hash = hash
-    if (cache$exists(hash, params$cache.lazy) &&
-        isFALSE(params$cache.rebuild) &&
-        params$engine != 'Rcpp') {
+    xfun::dir_create(dirname(hash))
+    if (cache_exists(params) && isFALSE(params$cache.rebuild) && params$engine != 'Rcpp') {
       if (opts_knit$get('verbose')) message('  loading cache from ', hash)
-      cache$load(hash, lazy = params$cache.lazy)
-      cache_engine(params)
+      cache$load(hash, options = params)
       if (!params$include) return('')
       if (params$cache == 3) return(cache$output(hash))
+    } else {
+      purge_cache(params)  # purge any invalid cache files
     }
     if (params$engine == 'R')
       cache$library(params$cache.path, save = FALSE) # load packages
@@ -156,7 +156,7 @@ block_exec = function(options) {
   output = paste(c(res.before, output, res.after), collapse = '')
   output = knit_hooks$get('chunk')(output, options)
   if (options$cache) {
-    cache.exists = cache$exists(options$hash, options$cache.lazy)
+    cache.exists = cache_exists(options)
     if (options$cache.rebuild || !cache.exists) block_cache(options, output, switch(
       options$engine,
       'stan' = options$output.var, 'sql' = options$output.var, character(0)
@@ -246,7 +246,7 @@ eng_r = function(options) {
   # guess plot file type if it is NULL
   if (keep != 'none') options$fig.ext = dev2ext(options)
 
-  cache.exists = cache$exists(options$hash, options$cache.lazy)
+  cache.exists = cache_exists(options)
   evaluate = knit_hooks$get('evaluate')
   # return code with class 'source' if not eval chunks
   res = if (is_blank(code)) list() else if (isFALSE(ev)) {
@@ -350,16 +350,33 @@ block_cache = function(options, output, objects) {
   hash = options$hash
   outname = cache_output_name(hash)
   assign(outname, output, envir = knit_global())
-  purge_cache(options)
   cache$library(options$cache.path, save = TRUE)
   cache$save(objects, outname, hash, lazy = options$cache.lazy)
+  cache_action(options, 'save', options)
+}
+
+# test if cache exists: first R cache must exist, then if a custom cache engine
+# exists, use the engine to check its cache exists
+cache_exists = function(options) {
+  cache$exists(options$hash, options$cache.lazy) &&
+    cache_action(options, 'exists', options)
 }
 
 purge_cache = function(options) {
   # purge my old cache and cache of chunks dependent on me
-  cache$purge(paste0(valid_path(
-    options$cache.path, c(options$label, dep_list$get(options$label))
-  ), '_????????????????????????????????'))
+  prefix = valid_path(options$cache.path, c(options$label, dep_list$get(options$label)))
+  glob_path = paste0(prefix, '_', paste(rep('?', 32), collapse = ''))  # length of the MD5 hash
+  cache$purge(glob_path)
+  cache_action(options, 'purge', glob_path)
+}
+
+cache_action = function(options, method, ...) {
+  res = if (method == 'exists') TRUE
+  if (length(eng <- cache_engines$get(options$engine))) {
+    obj = eng(options)
+    if (is.function(action <- obj[[method]])) res = action(...)
+  }
+  res
 }
 
 cache_globals = function(option, code) {
diff --git a/R/cache.R b/R/cache.R
index 0664c6277b..5ff5706e17 100644
--- a/R/cache.R
+++ b/R/cache.R
@@ -4,14 +4,8 @@
 ## but it is using .rdb and .rdx as 'hard cache' (instead of cache in memory)
 new_cache = function() {
 
-  cache_path = function(hash) {
-    d = dirname(hash)
-    if (!file.exists(d)) dir.create(d, showWarnings = FALSE, recursive = TRUE)
-    file.path(d, basename(hash))
-  }
-
-  cache_purge = function(hash) {
-    for (h in hash) unlink(paste(cache_path(h), c('rdb', 'rdx', 'RData'), sep = '.'))
+  cache_purge = function(path) {
+    for (p in path) unlink(paste(p, c('rdb', 'rdx', 'RData'), sep = '.'))
   }
 
   cache_save = function(keys, outname, hash, lazy = TRUE) {
@@ -20,18 +14,17 @@ new_cache = function() {
     out0 = outname
     on.exit(rm(list = out0, envir = knit_global()), add = TRUE)
     # keys are new variables created; outname is the text output of a chunk
-    path = cache_path(hash)
     # add random seed to cache if exists
     if (exists('.Random.seed', envir = globalenv(), inherits = FALSE)) {
       copy_env(globalenv(), knit_global(), '.Random.seed')
       outname = c('.Random.seed', outname)
     }
     if (!lazy) outname = c(keys, outname)
-    save(list = outname, file = paste(path, 'RData', sep = '.'), envir = knit_global())
+    save(list = outname, file = paste(hash, 'RData', sep = '.'), envir = knit_global())
     if (!lazy) return()  # everything has been saved; no need to make lazy db
     # random seed is always load()ed
     keys = setdiff(keys, '.Random.seed')
-    getFromNamespace('makeLazyLoadDB', 'tools')(knit_global(), path, variables = keys)
+    getFromNamespace('makeLazyLoadDB', 'tools')(knit_global(), hash, variables = keys)
   }
 
   save_objects = function(objs, label, path) {
@@ -53,13 +46,12 @@ new_cache = function() {
     save_objects(globals, label, valid_path(path, '__globals'))
   }
 
-  cache_load = function(hash, lazy = TRUE) {
-    path = cache_path(hash)
-    if (!is_abs_path(path)) path = file.path(getwd(), path)
-    if (lazy) lazyLoad(path, envir = knit_global())
+  cache_load = function(hash, lazy = options$cache.lazy, options = list()) {
+    if (!is_abs_path(hash)) path = file.path(getwd(), hash)
+    if (lazy) lazyLoad(hash, envir = knit_global())
     # load output from last run if exists
-    if (file.exists(path2 <- paste(path, 'RData', sep = '.'))) {
-      load(path2, envir = knit_global())
+    if (file.exists(path <- paste(hash, 'RData', sep = '.'))) {
+      load(path, envir = knit_global())
       if (exists('.Random.seed', envir = knit_global(), inherits = FALSE))
         copy_env(knit_global(), globalenv(), '.Random.seed')
       name = cache_meta_name(hash)
@@ -70,6 +62,7 @@ new_cache = function() {
         rm(list = name, envir = knit_global())
       }
     }
+    cache_action(options, 'load', options)
   }
 
   cache_library = function(path, save = TRUE) {
@@ -89,7 +82,7 @@ new_cache = function() {
   cache_exists = function(hash, lazy = TRUE) {
     is.character(hash) &&
       all(file.exists(paste(
-        cache_path(hash), if (lazy) c('rdb', 'rdx') else 'RData', sep = '.'
+        hash, c('RData', 'rdb', 'rdx')[if (lazy) 1:3 else 1], sep = '.'
       )))
   }
 
diff --git a/R/engine.R b/R/engine.R
index 5bfc0b0e9f..2196ec3327 100644
--- a/R/engine.R
+++ b/R/engine.R
@@ -278,11 +278,11 @@ eng_python = function(options) {
 
 cache_eng_python = function(options) {
   if (isFALSE(options$python.reticulate)) return()
-  # TODO: change this hack to reticulate::cache_eng_python(options) after
-  # https://github.com/rstudio/reticulate/pull/167 is merged and released
+  # TODO: change this hack to reticulate::cache_eng_python after
+  # https://github.com/rstudio/reticulate/pull/1210 is merged and released
   if (!'cache_eng_python' %in% ls(asNamespace('reticulate'))) return()
-  fun = getFromNamespace('cache_eng_python', 'reticulate')
-  fun(options)
+  eng = getFromNamespace('cache_eng_python', 'reticulate')
+  if (eng$available(options)) eng
 }
 
 ## Java
@@ -936,12 +936,6 @@ get_engine = function(name) {
   }
 }
 
-cache_engine = function(options) {
-  cache_fun = cache_engines$get(options$engine)
-  if (!is.function(cache_fun)) return()
-  cache_fun(options)
-}
-
 # possible values for engines (for auto-completion in RStudio)
 opts_chunk_attr$engine = as.list(sort(c('R', names(knit_engines$get()))))
 opts_chunk_attr[c('engine.path', 'engine.opts')] = list('character', 'character')
diff --git a/R/plot.R b/R/plot.R
index 5a6a7d7e40..8e364120e1 100644
--- a/R/plot.R
+++ b/R/plot.R
@@ -146,7 +146,7 @@ save_plot = function(plot, name, dev, width, height, ext, dpi, options) {
 
   path = paste(name, ext, sep = '.')
   # when cache=2 and plot file exists, just return the filename
-  if (options$cache == 2 && cache$exists(options$hash, options$cache.lazy)) {
+  if (options$cache == 2 && cache_exists(options)) {
     if (in_base_dir(!file.exists(path))) {
       purge_cache(options)
       stop('cannot find ', path, '; the cache has been purged; please re-compile')
diff --git a/tests/testit/test-cache.R b/tests/testit/test-cache.R
index bf0da9f42d..5941c64e44 100644
--- a/tests/testit/test-cache.R
+++ b/tests/testit/test-cache.R
@@ -44,3 +44,34 @@ assert('dep_prev() sets dependencies on previous chunks', {
 })
 dep_list$restore()
 knit_code$restore()
+
+mock_cache = (function() {
+  noop_false = function(...) FALSE
+  noop_true = function(...) TRUE
+  list(
+    available = noop_true, exists = noop_false, load = noop_false,
+    save = noop_false, purge = noop_false
+  )  # may return anything
+})()
+knit_engines$set(mock = function(...) "\n\nmock result\n\n")
+cache_engines$set(mock = function(...) mock_cache)
+knit_engine_cache = function() {
+  in_dir(tempdir(), {
+    txt = c(
+      '```{mock test, cache=TRUE, cache.path=""}',
+      'mock code',
+      '```'
+    )
+    knit(text = txt, quiet = TRUE)
+    R_cache_file = list.files(pattern = "RData$")
+    t1 = file.mtime(R_cache_file)
+    knit(text = txt, quiet = TRUE)
+    t2 = file.mtime(R_cache_file)
+    t1 != t2  # missing "mock" cache should invalidate R cache
+  })
+}
+assert("missing external engine's cache invalidates R cache", {
+  (knit_engine_cache())
+})
+knit_engines$delete('mock')
+cache_engines$delete('mock')