Linzertorte

According to the Joy of Cooking, this is a German "company" pie. For us it is just another way to eat our fruit in the winter months. I made it this morning with some strawberry jam Rob canned this past summer.....

Linzertorte
from Joy of Cooking
makes a 9 inch pie, which should serve about 12

1 cup sugar
3/4 cup butter
1 teaspoon grated lemon rind*
2 eggs
1 1/4 cups flour*
1 cup almonds, ground in a nut grinder or food processor, etc.
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon cloves
1 Tablespoon cocoa powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 pint jam or preserves*

Preheat oven to 325F and have all ingredients at 70F.

Beat butter until soft. Add sugar gradually and blend until very light and creamy. Add lemon rind. Beat in eggs one at a time. Stir in gradually the flour, almonds, cinnamon, cloves, cocoa powder, and salt. Joy of cooking says, "the old recipe reads, 'Stir for one hour,' but of course no high-geared American has time for that. With the Kitchen Aid, I leave it running on medium while I put the ingredients away and tidy up the kitchen. This probably takes about 10 minutes and makes my husband happy.

If the dough is very soft, chill it. Reserve 1 to 1 1/2 cups of dough for your lattice, set aside. Pat the rest into an ovenproof dish. You want a thickness of about 1/8 inch. Mound the sides up slightly so you have room for the jam. Rechill until firm.

Cover the cake with the jam or preserves.


Place remaining dough into a pastry tube*. Forcing the dough through the bag, form a good edge and lattice. Bake the cake about 50 minutes or until the dough starts to brown.

Before serving, fill any hollows with additional preserves. You may also dust the top with confectioners sugar.

Notes:
* I didn't have any fresh lemons this morning, so I used 1 teaspoon lemon juice and it worked just fine.
* I generally use 3/4 cup white flour and 1/2 cup whole wheat flour to try and make the dessert a little more healthy.
* I used strawberry jam today, but have also had good results with raspberry.
* I also had a heck of a time with my pastry bag; I couldn't find the right tip and so my lattice is all squiggly. I finally had decent luck with a regular old ziplock baggie. I fill the bag with dough, squeezing down into one corner, get the air out and zip the bag closed. Then I cut the tip off the corner. The only real trick is not too cut too big of a piece off the corner, so I start small and make it bigger if necessary. Hopefully next time I'll have a little better presentation!