Linzer Torte recipe for Valentine’s Day

Lots of people don’t like Valentine’s day because they consider it a commercial holiday. They don’t need a special day to show their love – they do that every day! Perhaps they just don’t like sugar-coated cards and pink hearts. But you don’t have to buy champagne, red roses or heart-shaped chocolate (you certainly can if you want to!). Try simply doing something nice. Send a friend a sweet and thoughtful card or make your husband his favourite food.

Linzer Torte recipe

My husband’s favourite cake is a Linzer Torte and he often makes it himself. There is no better way to show my love than to make him just that cake! My husband’s family is German and this is an old family recipe. It is named after the Austrian city of Linz. There are lots of variations, but we always make it with hazelnuts and raspberry jam. This Linzer torte recipe is easy to make, and the result is delicious.

Ingredients:

• 200 grams hazelnuts
• 250 grams flour
• 175 grams caster sugar
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1 pinch of ground cloves
• 1 tablespoon lemon juice
• 1 egg
• 200 grams cold butter
• 1 jar of raspberry jam

Directions

Grind the hazelnuts. You can use a food processor but I use a hand blender with a chopper attachment and that works fine!

Put the flour in a bowl and add the sugar, cinnamon, cloves, lemon juice and the egg. Stir until well combined.

Cut the butter into cubes and add it, together with the ground hazelnuts, to the bowl. Knead quickly into a dough. Put the dough into cling film and leave it in the refrigerator for half an hour.

Place about ⅔ of the dough in a 24 cm. greased springform and press it with your fingers until the form is evenly covered. For this occasion, I used a silicone, heart-shaped cake mould. Grease it lightly with some oil.

Spread the jam over the dough. Shape the remaining dough into several small rolls and use them to create a lattice. Don’t worry if it doesn’t look perfect, this is a rustic looking tart. If you have any leftover dough you can use it to bake some cookies, they taste delicious!

Bake the tart in a preheated oven (160°C) for about 45 minutes. Let the tart cool off before removing from the mould. A silicone mould works the best.

A piece for him and a piece for you. Enjoy!