Linzer Torte

Linzer Torte

My all-time favourite German cake is actually not German at all - its origins are the City of Linz in Austria. But hey, I consider that to be part of the great Germanic "empire"!!! You can read about it here.

And my goodness my cake doesn't look anything like the photo in that article! I like to say my turned out rather "rustic". As it baked the lattice pretty much melted into itself but oh my, the aroma of this cake is to die for! Ground hazelnuts, cloves, cinnamon, almond, raspberry. Yum! I love this cake so much and have such fond memories of eating it as a child I had to try my hand at it again today.

First, I didn't have much butter left. What to do? Searching the vast interior of my huge fridge which never seems to be empty my eyes fell upon the Earth Balance vegan buttery spread. Read about that product here. Now, I know, it's not like real butter but I wanted to give it a try so I used the last little bit of unsalted butter (about 100 grams) and the rest was the Earth Balance. Haven't tasted this baby yet but it smells awesome and I hope you give it a try. 

The recipe is in metric measurement (by weight). Here it is:

Linzer Torte

200 grams unbleached white flour

1 teaspoon baking powder

125 grams sugar

1 tsp vanilla extract

1/2 teaspoon almond extract

1/4 teaspoon ground cloves

1 teaspoon (I used about 1/2 tsp) cinnamon

2 eggs

125 grams ground almonds or hazelnuts 

125 grams cold butter or margarine

I put all the dry ingredients into the bowl of my stand mixer and mixed everything together nicely. Oh, except the eggs and butter. I added those last, let the mixer pull that all together into a soft but manageable dough. 

Here's how it looked:

Beautiful nutty and spicy dough

Split the dough into two portions, about 2/3 goes into the bottom of a prepared springform pan:

The chunk on the left went into the pan; the chunk on the right became the lattice

Then you roll out the smaller portion (you'll need to add flour here because this dough was a little soft)

The base

Then you spread raspberry jam onto the base of the cake. I found this jam at the store today and it sounded so good I simply had to try it:

I know what you're thinking - Raspberry & Key Lime?! 

Let me tell you this tasted so yummy! I used nearly half the jar for the cake - I like a lot of filling!

Then I rolled the rest of the dough, cut it into strips and put it on top of the jam covered base dough. 

You need to take little bits of dough and tuck those along the edge of the cake to give it a bit of a finished look. Make an egg wash with 1 egg and bit of water and use a pastry brush to coat the top of the cake. 

Ready for the oven - as I said - RUSTIC!

Bake at 375 F for about 20 minutes. Watch carefully that it doesn't get too brown but you do want it to be golden. 

The final product:

Can't wait to try it! 

Don't be afraid to play around with ingredients. I found that from years of reading cookbooks I am starting to cook more out of my head with the ingredients I have on hand. OR I refer to one or two cookbooks (sometimes 3 or 4!) for recipes that are similar to what I have in mind and then create my own thing. OR I use a recipe as a guide and simply substitute with the ingredients I have. I find it rather enjoyable and since we have to eat anyway (and the guys are always ready to eat!) and since the men don't seem to have the bug for cooking or baking, I might as well use the creativity I do have in the kitchen!! I can't draw anything beyond stickmen, I don't paint, I'm not artsy at all, so this is one way I express myself!

And so it's the end of another week - have a great weekend everyone! 

Esther