This one goes out to the Mommys.
My husband grew up in Germany. His mother is a great cook and baker. He has a few "Mother made this" favorites, and they usually turn into favorites of mine too. This is one of those favorites. My husband had to go on a business trip the past three days and it was our first time apart since we got married. I missed him and wanted to treat him to something special when he got home.
I also have a habit of launching right into a project without knowing for sure whether I have everything I need to get through the project. Despite the numerous amount of times I have gotten half way through a project and realized I didn't have the tools I needed, I continue to make this mistake. But it is usually a great experience. Even if the food didn't turn out great, I learned some really good tricks for how to get by without things I thought I needed, or a neat alternative to what the recipe calls for. I realized I owe this characteristic to my Mommy.
When I was a little stranger than baker, my mommy would have to make meals for me with v. little in the pantry. She became v. wise in the skill of improvisation. Watching her jaded me to the thought that something is impossible without a certain ingredient or tool. I've learned to do without actual powdered sugar, buttermilk, and even eggs, among other things!
This was also one small part of the development of my inner motto: nothing is impossible.
Anyway, the original recipe calls for raspberries and raspberry preserves. I had a few raspberries, more blueberries, and tons of strawberry preserves. I also had a blender instead of a food processor, not enough almonds, and no hazelnuts. Whatevs!
This recipe taken in part from Joy of Baking
Ingredients:
Preserves:
1/2 c frozen raspberries
1 c blueberries
1/4 c sugar
1/2 tspn currant wine (optional)
2-3 tbspn strawberry preserves
Linzer Torte:
1/4 c plain almonds
1 1/2 c walnuts
1 1/2 c flour
2/3 c sugar
1 tspn ground cinnamon
1/8 tspn ground cloves
1/4 tspn salt
1/2 tspn baking powder
14 tbspn (~1 and 2/3 stick) cold butter
1 egg, 1 egg yolk
1 tspn vanilla extract
Preserves:
Heat and stir raspberries, blueberries and sugar in a small saucepan over medium heat until it begins to boil. Turn down the heat to a simmer and allow most of the juices to evaporate (~ 15 min). The result should coat the spoon. Stir in currant wine. Before it burns, pour it into a measuring cup and add strawberry preserves until the mixture makes 1 cup. Stir the mixture together and place in the fridge.
Linzer Torte:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Place almonds and walnuts on a baking sheet and place on center rack in the oven. Let the nuts bake until they are aromatic and slightly browned (~10 mins). Remove from oven to cool. Once the nuts are cool, place nuts and 1/2 c flour in blender. Blend up the nuts and flour until the nuts are relatively finely chopped (really, whatever your preferance is). This may require plenty of pulsing, stopping to turn off and unplug the blender, and push down the mixture on the sides into the center with a long handled rubber spatula or fork. (I recently met a little old lady who got her fingers sliced up in a blender just 2 days ago, so this was a v. slow, cautious process for me.) Once the nuts are chopped to your satifcation, pour into the bowl of your mixer. Add remaining flour, sugar, ground cinnamon, ground cloves, salt, and baking powder and mix until combined. Add the butter in pieces. Mix. With all intentions of adding only the egg yolk to the mixture, accidentally add in one whole egg. Then carefully seperate the second egg so you only add an egg yolk. Add vanilla extract and mix until the dough is so moist you don't think it will work right as a crust.
Scoop out a little less than half of the dough and place on aluminum foil in the freezer. With the remaining dough, spread into the bottom and up the sides of a tart pan. You will have to use a spatula, and you will really begin to doubt the consistancy of the dough. It will be sticky and a little hard to handle.
Pull remaining dough out of the freezer, place another peice of aluminum foil on top and roll the dough between the foil into a circle slightly larger than the tart pan. You might have trouble removing the top sheet of foil. If so; place the dough in freezer for another 5 minutes. Remove top sheet of foil and realize the dough is too sticky to cut into pretty little slices for lattice work on top of the tart. Take a butter knife or spoon and scoop up rows of the dough to pinch off and drip on top of the tart in a design of your choice. The truth is it is so moist it will spread out and bake in a totally different shape anyway. Let it go. It will still be extremely tasty.
Bake the tart in your 350 degree preheated oven for about 35 min until the edges begin to brown and the dough is soft, but makes a dull knocking sound when you tap it with a chopstick. Remove from oven and let cool. Dust with powdered sugar.
This tart is really good straight from the oven, or a couple days old. I prefer it warm either way.
Enjoy!
My husband grew up in Germany. His mother is a great cook and baker. He has a few "Mother made this" favorites, and they usually turn into favorites of mine too. This is one of those favorites. My husband had to go on a business trip the past three days and it was our first time apart since we got married. I missed him and wanted to treat him to something special when he got home.
I also have a habit of launching right into a project without knowing for sure whether I have everything I need to get through the project. Despite the numerous amount of times I have gotten half way through a project and realized I didn't have the tools I needed, I continue to make this mistake. But it is usually a great experience. Even if the food didn't turn out great, I learned some really good tricks for how to get by without things I thought I needed, or a neat alternative to what the recipe calls for. I realized I owe this characteristic to my Mommy.
When I was a little stranger than baker, my mommy would have to make meals for me with v. little in the pantry. She became v. wise in the skill of improvisation. Watching her jaded me to the thought that something is impossible without a certain ingredient or tool. I've learned to do without actual powdered sugar, buttermilk, and even eggs, among other things!
This was also one small part of the development of my inner motto: nothing is impossible.
Anyway, the original recipe calls for raspberries and raspberry preserves. I had a few raspberries, more blueberries, and tons of strawberry preserves. I also had a blender instead of a food processor, not enough almonds, and no hazelnuts. Whatevs!
This recipe taken in part from Joy of Baking
Ingredients:
Preserves:
1/2 c frozen raspberries
1 c blueberries
1/4 c sugar
1/2 tspn currant wine (optional)
2-3 tbspn strawberry preserves
Linzer Torte:
1/4 c plain almonds
1 1/2 c walnuts
1 1/2 c flour
2/3 c sugar
1 tspn ground cinnamon
1/8 tspn ground cloves
1/4 tspn salt
1/2 tspn baking powder
14 tbspn (~1 and 2/3 stick) cold butter
1 egg, 1 egg yolk
1 tspn vanilla extract
Preserves:
Heat and stir raspberries, blueberries and sugar in a small saucepan over medium heat until it begins to boil. Turn down the heat to a simmer and allow most of the juices to evaporate (~ 15 min). The result should coat the spoon. Stir in currant wine. Before it burns, pour it into a measuring cup and add strawberry preserves until the mixture makes 1 cup. Stir the mixture together and place in the fridge.
Linzer Torte:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Place almonds and walnuts on a baking sheet and place on center rack in the oven. Let the nuts bake until they are aromatic and slightly browned (~10 mins). Remove from oven to cool. Once the nuts are cool, place nuts and 1/2 c flour in blender. Blend up the nuts and flour until the nuts are relatively finely chopped (really, whatever your preferance is). This may require plenty of pulsing, stopping to turn off and unplug the blender, and push down the mixture on the sides into the center with a long handled rubber spatula or fork. (I recently met a little old lady who got her fingers sliced up in a blender just 2 days ago, so this was a v. slow, cautious process for me.) Once the nuts are chopped to your satifcation, pour into the bowl of your mixer. Add remaining flour, sugar, ground cinnamon, ground cloves, salt, and baking powder and mix until combined. Add the butter in pieces. Mix. With all intentions of adding only the egg yolk to the mixture, accidentally add in one whole egg. Then carefully seperate the second egg so you only add an egg yolk. Add vanilla extract and mix until the dough is so moist you don't think it will work right as a crust.
Scoop out a little less than half of the dough and place on aluminum foil in the freezer. With the remaining dough, spread into the bottom and up the sides of a tart pan. You will have to use a spatula, and you will really begin to doubt the consistancy of the dough. It will be sticky and a little hard to handle.
Pull remaining dough out of the freezer, place another peice of aluminum foil on top and roll the dough between the foil into a circle slightly larger than the tart pan. You might have trouble removing the top sheet of foil. If so; place the dough in freezer for another 5 minutes. Remove top sheet of foil and realize the dough is too sticky to cut into pretty little slices for lattice work on top of the tart. Take a butter knife or spoon and scoop up rows of the dough to pinch off and drip on top of the tart in a design of your choice. The truth is it is so moist it will spread out and bake in a totally different shape anyway. Let it go. It will still be extremely tasty.
Bake the tart in your 350 degree preheated oven for about 35 min until the edges begin to brown and the dough is soft, but makes a dull knocking sound when you tap it with a chopstick. Remove from oven and let cool. Dust with powdered sugar.
This tart is really good straight from the oven, or a couple days old. I prefer it warm either way.
Enjoy!