Currently cooking out of Pure Dessert by Alice Medrich.
Linzer tortes are a favorite Austrian or German holiday pastry. In it’s classic configuration, a buttery, almond-based dough sandwiches raspberry jam. I haven’t tried many linzer tortes (there are also cookie variations), so I wasn’t sure what to expect with this one. It had two things I don’t like very much: cloves and raspberry jam.
I generally find the flavor of cloves to be overwhelming, even in small amounts, and I’m prejudiced when it comes to baking with raspberry jam. I like my raspberry jam on toast, and that’s about it (actually, that goes for all jams or jellies, not just raspberry). Baking with jams and/or jellies seems like cheating to me (yeah, I’m weird. I know).
So, back to Medrich’s recipe. The dough came together pretty easily, using a food processor. I would have liked more descriptions on what the dough is supposed to look and feel like. Her directions say to pulse just until the almonds, flour, sugar, egg yolk and butter are blended. When I did that, though, the dough was still extremely crumbly. I continued pulsing until the dough came together in a ball. At that point, it was too soft to manipulate, so I let it sit in the fridge for about 30 minutes, to firm up, even though Medrich’s directions don’t say that.
Rolling the dough for the lattice was an exercise in patience. Even though I had chilled the dough, it was still extremely tender and sticky. Per Medrich’s instructions, I made sure to grease the fluted tart pan really well. As the torte baked, it smelled amazing and turned out looking quite pretty. Despite the careful greasing, it did stick a bit in the pan. I also ended up with a pool of butter underneath the torte.
Surprisingly, I mostly liked the torte, especially the edges where the dough carmalized a bit. The spices in the dough give it an almost peppery bite that goes nicely with the raspberry jam. Both Bryan and I thought there was too much jam in the center and that it made the torte too sweet. If I try the torte again, I’ll cut down on the amount of jam. I might also considering doing a version with something like nutella or maybe even lemon curd.
Why was nutella given a priority listing over lemon curd? I mean, isn’t that sacrilege??? I think my fairy god mother knew what she was doing when she got you to fall in love with a man from out west. If you were back here, you’d have to teach me how to run marathons. I think I gain ten pounds just reading the blog! I really, really want to sample this and I’m not a raspberry-anything fan, even on toast. I think it’s the awesome picture. It looks totally yummy!