L is for Linzertorte

Having picked punnets and punnets full or raspberries from my allotment the other day, this recipe seemed a good idea to use a few of them up!

The recipe originates from Austria and is named after the city of Linz.  It is made from a lovely cinnamon pastry filled originally with jam and covered by lattice strips.  This is a very old recipe indeed, with the original recipe dating back to 1653.

It is quite a simple ‘cake’ to make, but tastes delicious.

Ingredients

• 115g butter
• 115g caster sugar
• 1 egg
• 175g plain flour
• 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
• 150g ground almonds
• 350g fresh raspberries
• A little caster sugar to sprinkle over the fruit
• Icing sugar for sprinkling over the top before serving

Method

1. Cream the butter and sugar together until light and pale.
2. Add the egg and mix again.
3. Slowly add the flour, cinnamon and almonds until the mixture starts to come together.
4. Using your hands bring the dough to a ball, wrap in clingfilm and put in the fridge for an hour or so  The dough will be quite sticky.  It reminded me of a cookie dough mixture rather than pastry.
5. Preheat the oven to 180C (Fan 160C)/350F/Gas Mark 4.
6. Using 3/4 of the dough either roll it out so it fits in a 20cm loose bottomed flan tin, or do as I did as I found the dough to be very sticky (it may have been that it was a very hot day when I made this), and placed the dough into the tin and using my fingers flattened the dough out and up the side of the tin (similar to how I would press shortbread into a tin).
7. Spread the raspberries over the bottom of the dough and sprinkle with sugar.
8. Using the remainder of the dough, roll this out and cut into thin strips and make a lattice pattern over the top of the raspberries.  I didn’t weave my strips in and out of each other, as they kept falling apart, so instead they were just laid over the top of each other!
9. Bake in the oven for approximately 25-30 minutes until the pastry is a pale golden brown.
10. Allow to cool before removing from the tin.  Just before serving sprinkle some icing sugar over the top.

I hope you enjoy this if you decide to make it.  The pastry is delicious and I think next time I will mix the berries up and use some of the redcurrants and blackcurrants I have picked from the allotment, or maybe some of the gooseberries!