I needed to come up with a European-theme dessert for an office function and decided to try a recipe for Apricot Almond Linzertorte. It's not apricot season, of course, but the filling for this tart is made from dried fruit, so you can enjoy it year round.
You make the crust for the torte in the food processor by processing almonds with sugar until fine (I used an equivalent weight of almond flour instead of starting with whole nuts); adding flour, salt, cinnamon, ginger, and cloves; and pulsing in the liquid ingredients (egg yolks, vanilla extract, almond extract, and lemon zest) and cold cubed butter until the dough forms a ball. You divide the dough into two unequal parts, roll one part into a 10-inch round and the other into a 12-inch round, and chill both. The larger disc of dough ends up becoming the bottom crust and you use the smaller one to cut the lattice strips.
I decided to use a tart pan with a removable bottom instead of a springform pan. Even after chilling, the dough was quite fragile and I had to patch up some tears that formed when I lined the tart tin. I blind baked the crust and after it was completely cool I spread on the fruit filling -- a mixture of dried apricots, water, brandy, and sugar that has been cooked and run through the food processor. I think that I might have over-reduced my filling mixture on the stove, because it ended up being very stiff to the point that it was difficult to spread.
After the crust was filled, I used a fluted pastry wheel to cut the lattice strips from the remaining dough and laid them out on top of the filing, pressing the ends together with the baked bottom crust. I ended up tearing a lot of the strips because the dough was so finicky, but I was able to patch everything up well. I baked the torte again until golden.
The torte came out looking pretty good but I ran into some problems trying to release it from the tart pan. The edges of the crust were quite crumbly (perhaps I overbaked it a bit) and bits of it broke off as I tried to remove the bottom of the pan from the top ring. In retrospect, using a fluted pan was the wrong call and this dessert probably would have worked out better if I had baked it in an open tart ring without a bottom. Quite a few slices of the torte (like the one in the photo below) ended up missing bits of crust along the top edge.
Also, as you can see in the photo, the slices of torte were very thin. Except for the fragile portions around the crust edge, the torte held together well. Party guests liked the linzertorte, but I wasn't very happy with it. The spice flavor was too strong for my taste. I like linzertorte because I love almonds and hazelnuts. But here the spices dominated and overshadowed the almonds. Plus, the crumbly crust was definitely not ideal. Objectively this torte wasn't bad, but I found it disappointing.
Recipe: "Apricot Almond Linzertorte" from epicurious.com.
Previous Posts: "It's the Least I Could Do: Linzertorte," February 13, 2014.
You make the crust for the torte in the food processor by processing almonds with sugar until fine (I used an equivalent weight of almond flour instead of starting with whole nuts); adding flour, salt, cinnamon, ginger, and cloves; and pulsing in the liquid ingredients (egg yolks, vanilla extract, almond extract, and lemon zest) and cold cubed butter until the dough forms a ball. You divide the dough into two unequal parts, roll one part into a 10-inch round and the other into a 12-inch round, and chill both. The larger disc of dough ends up becoming the bottom crust and you use the smaller one to cut the lattice strips.
I decided to use a tart pan with a removable bottom instead of a springform pan. Even after chilling, the dough was quite fragile and I had to patch up some tears that formed when I lined the tart tin. I blind baked the crust and after it was completely cool I spread on the fruit filling -- a mixture of dried apricots, water, brandy, and sugar that has been cooked and run through the food processor. I think that I might have over-reduced my filling mixture on the stove, because it ended up being very stiff to the point that it was difficult to spread.
After the crust was filled, I used a fluted pastry wheel to cut the lattice strips from the remaining dough and laid them out on top of the filing, pressing the ends together with the baked bottom crust. I ended up tearing a lot of the strips because the dough was so finicky, but I was able to patch everything up well. I baked the torte again until golden.
Recipe: "Apricot Almond Linzertorte" from epicurious.com.
Previous Posts: "It's the Least I Could Do: Linzertorte," February 13, 2014.
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