Linzertorte
(a family recipe, with variations)
150g butter (or nut oil)
250g sugar (any sugar seems to work, depending on your taste)
150g hazelnut meal (almond also works)
300g Plain flour (this recipe works very well with gluten free flour too)
1 flat tsp baking powder
2 tbsp cocoa
½ tsp cinnamon
1 pinch ground cloves
Rind of 1 lemon
1 egg
2 liquer glasses kirsch (or other fruit spirit)
2-3 tbsp milk
5-6 tbsp jam (use your imagination, but I like more sour jams here. I think some of you guys may know jam as "jelly"?)
1 egg yolk
-Mix all dry ingredients
-Mix in all wet ingredients (not the jam and the extra egg yolk yet! You could put the "waste" egg white into the mix here) The mix should be play-dough consistency, not sloppy and not crumbly. Adjust flour/milk/kirsch as necessary
-Press mixture into a baking tray, about 1cm thick
-spread jam on top liberally
-roll out excess mixture onto a chopping board, about 5mm thick. You can use a long knife to cut it into strips, get it off the board and arrange it into a hatched pattern on the top of the cake.
-mix a bit of extra milk (or condensed milk) with the egg yolk and paint this on the top to give a nice shiny look when baked.
-Bake about half an hour in a medium oven (180 degrees C)
This is a very versatile recipe and I play around with it all the time. I recently made a less "christmassy" one by leaving out all the spices and replacing them with lots of finely grated lemongrass and vanilla essense. Oh and using gin instead of kirsch. You can't break this recipe, I swear. I've made it gluten free, vegan, and replaced almost every ingredient at least once.
Oh and I even dream about it.