Easier than you may think: Linzer tart

You've seen them, haven't you? Those beautiful, almost glass like pies, or smaller tarts, sitting in good pastry store windows, glistening like stained glass through lattice? Of course you have. I bet you've had the smaller ones: the tarts, or perhaps the linzer cookies: little circles with jam, and the lattice on top of them And I bet you thought "there is NO way in creation that I'm going to make one of those."

I was of the same mind. Well, that has changed, and with the thanks of my guide for all things pie like, Rose Levy Birnbaum, I can now say that I have made them, and I will make them again. I will say other things further on, before we get to the recipe, which will not be pleasing, but as this blog covers more than cooking, so be it.

The use of jam as a filling in pies is not uniquely Austrian. Italians do it, in crostata di marmalata, and of course, the French do it with "confiture." When you get right down to it, there is something almost primeval about our love of toasty things, with jam in or on them. How many of us will speak of childhoods where "dessert" was a piece of toast slathered with jam? We may deride it now, but close your eyes and think back: if the jam was good, and the bread was first rate, was it really all that bad? This morning, for her breakfast, Annalena toasted up some homemade rye bread and put some raspberry jam left over from the linzer tart making fest. SO GOOD. And one of her favorite breakfasts is to sit in one of her favorite places, a Japanese breakfast shop, named "Te adore'" and put away half of a toasted baguette, buttered, with apricot jam on it. This is from someone, by the way, who almost never eats jam.

Making a pie filled with jam was not a problem. The scary part for Annalena was the lattice part. When Baroness von Schrader asked for "help" in making some linzer tarts for a competition, Annalena consented, without fully knowing what she was getting into.

Ms. Birnbaums' recipe seemed very reassuring, and in fact, it worked beautifully. I am going to go through it here, with my usual detours as to how I varied it, and why, with just a short detour here as well.

Annalena was reminded of an old saying last night that seems apt here: "if you want to lose a friend and money, loan a friend money." There is no money involved in this story; however, as I'm sure you have noticed, when Annalena borrows from a source, she names it, praises it, tells you how she varies it, and usually tells you how to get there. There are no recipes that are "owned solely" by one person. Cooking is a shared adventure.

Except when people take credit for what they did not do all to themselves. Sadly, that is in fact what happened here. Annalena will have to process that; however, she asks you, in fact, she beseeches you, pleasae make sure that you credit your teachers, your helpers, your suppliers, wherever you go. Or, be prepared to moveon, many times.

To the task at hand: we start with the pie crust, because ultimately, the only thing you have to do here is make the crust. And it is , ultimately, a cookie crust. When you make this dough, if you are experienced with cookie baking, you will think of nut shortbreads, or things like Russian wedding cakes, or Mexican wedding cakes. With good reason. The bases are the same. For the dough, you need a cup of ground nuts, or nut flours. You can get away with half a cup, incidentally. Traditionally, this is toasted almond flour, and that is what I used. Ms Birnbaum suggested hazelnuts, and that sounds good, but to me, not with raspberry. Use what you like.

You can buy toasted nut powders, and that is what I used. If, however, you start with whole nuts, toast them (350 for ten minutes or until they smell toasty), let them cool, and then grind them in a food processor, using the pulsing button, until you have a fine grind, that looks a bit like rough flour. As I said, a half cup will do, a full cup is better. Now, keep this nut flour in the food processor with a stick and a half of cold, unsalted butter, cut into cubes, and 2 cups of flour, 2/3 cups of sugar, a teaspoon each of baking powder and cinnamon (don't omit the cinnamon), and then two egg youlks, and a teaspoon of vanilla extract. Process this until it begins to take on the shape of a ball.

I will advise you that you may need to add a few tablespoons of water to this. I did. My dough was just not looking cohesive enough. It's ok with part one of the crust, but you will need some cohesiveness with the lattice.

Okay, so you've processed the dough, now divide it. One part should be about 15-20% more than the other. If you have a scale that weighs in grams, this is ridiculously easy to do.

Take the larger portion and, with your fingers, press the dough into a 10 inch, fluted tart pan (if you don't have one, get one). It will make things MUCH easier if you start by pressing the dough up around the edges, all the way, and then press the bottom in. It will be very easy to do. In fact, you will probably be surprised at how easy it is. Put it aside, because now, the hard part starts.

Get two big sheets of waxed paper, or parchment paper, and put the rest of the dough in between them. Use a rolling pin and do your best to roll this out to a rectangle that is about 5x10. This is not easy, and it will frustrate you. You don't have to be perfect, but the 10 inch length is important.

After you have that done, you want to cut ten strips, about a half inch wide. You will need a sharp knife to do this, and you will want to work fast. If the strips aren't perfect, don't fret; however, if you want to be precise, you can pull out a tape measure and mark the strips.

Ideally, what you will do at this point is put the strips into the freezer for five minutes, or the refrigerator for ten-fifteen, to firm them up. It will reduce your frustration level if you do.

While they're chilling, get your jam. Linzer tart, classically, calls for seedless raspberry jam, and just about all the ones I've seen, have used red raspberry.

I was using locally made jam, and could not find the seedless red kind; however, when I talked about the project with my resident jam maker Beth, she highly recommended black raspberry jam.

Annalena loves raspberries. She eats them all season long and laments their passing. But if she loves raspberries, she is enraptured with black raspberries, which come into season first, have a short season, and leave. They have a perfume that reminds her of roses, and her black raspberry ice creams and sorbets bring raves. So, black raspberry it was.

I have commented in the past that Ms Birnbaum's pie fillings have seemed a bit stingy to me. So, too, this one. She recommends a cup of jam, or "10.5 ounces."

This instruction puzzled me. A cup is 8 ounces. Is it one or the other? In fact, my experience was that you need a good jar and a half to fill the tart. And, rather than putting it directly into the pie and spreading it out, I suggest you dirty an extra bowl, break up the jam a bit with a spatula, and then load it into the crust. I found this to make things much easier. You can spread the stuff out with your hands, and then wash them. It's easy.

Now, start preheating your oven to 350. Take that crust out of the fridge/freezer or from the side, and here's the part where I think Ms. Birnbaum is a genius. She advises to take a nine inch circular pan, put it down on top of the crust, and cut a circle around it. You will wind up with ten, lovely, nine inch strips. You do have to bravely grap the whole thing, and turn it upside down. But you can do it. Save the excess dough, and now take those strips. Lay five of them over the jam, spacing them evenly. If they break, don't worry. Patch as you can because it will work out in the baking. Then, rotate your pie 90 degrees, and lay down the last five, in exactly the same way you put down the first five.

I guess this is "ersatz" lattice, since you're not weaving anything, but it's pretty. Ms. Birnbaum then suggests making little tiny balls of the rest of the dough, and spreading them around the pie, at the points where the strips touch the wall of the pan.

If you must, be my guest. I started doing it and lost patience. In any event, put the thing on a baking sheet, and bake it for a full hour. The jam will bubble up for a bit, but not much. The crust will darken to a lovely golden brown, and you will have a beautiful winter tarte when you are done.

Now, if you have eaten linzer tart and been disappointed, I believe I know why. First, there may have been inferior jam used in the filling. Buy good stuff. BUT... I think that the problem is that the tart was probably refrigerated. This tart need not be put in the fridge, shouldn't be, and will keep for a week outside of the fridge.

It will. Look at the ingredients. Nuthin to go bad here. And Ms Birnbaum says that it is especially delicious warm. I prefer at room temperature.

So, do it, but be careful for whom you do it, especially if you respect authorship and expect your own to be respected.