Linzer Torte

Lots of work, travelling and headaches kept me from blogging. But here I am again.
I had Linzer Torte when I was in Süd-Tirol last autumn and I simply loved it. So I got the idea to make it myself one day.
I found a recipe in a German cookbook and I also checked an Italian recipe for crostata de marmellata, which was fairly similar. The result wasn't quite what I remembered from Süd-Tirol but it still tasted very nice.


Serves 4-6

125 g butter, cut in dice
200 g flour
125 g ground hazelnuts (or almonds)
80 g sugar (recipe said powder sugar, I used cane sugar)
1 egg
1 tsp cinnamon
pinch of vanilla black spots (from inside a vanilla pod)
200 g raspberry jam

Mix flour, hazelnuts, cinnamon, vanilla and sugar in a bowl.
Make a hole in the middle and add butter and egg.
Mix this with your fingers until you get a firm dough. Add more flour if necessary.
Cover the bowl and let the dough rest in the fridge for 2h.

Cut 1/3rd of the dough off and set it aside.
Roll out the remaining 2/3rds and transfer it to a greased pie dish (this is a tricky part).
Pierce it with a fork, then cover with jam.
Roll out the remaining dough and cut it into strips. Decorate the jam with the strips of dough.
Bake at 180°C for around 30 min.

Notes:
You can add grated lemon rind in the dough and decorate the tart with sliced almonds. You can also paint the strips of dough on top with a bit of egg yolk for extra colour. I didn't bother with any of this.

I used two types of jam: one was strawberry-raspberry-pineapple, a leftover in my fridge, and the other one was home-made blackberry jam, which was offered to me in Portugal and which I managed to bring to Belgium without breaking the pot.