A traditional Linzer Torte ... with a sneaky gluten free option

A Linzer Torte is a wonderful thing.

Basically it's a cross between a cake and a pastry, made with hazelnut or almond meal, with a lattice top and a filling of blackcurrant or raspberry jam.

detail of the pastry lattice

There was an amazing Austrian or German cake shop in Melbourne when I was growing up called Fleischer's that used to make them. Fleischer's was in Chapel St, just around the corner from my Dad's toyshop in Toorak Road, and when I was little and was spending weekends with Dad, we would trot up there before we opened the shop on a Saturday morning, and get some little cakes to sustain us through a tough morning of toy-selling.

Fleischer's got me through many years of Saturday morning treats and the occasional cake for special occasions. I was delighted to see that Lori Leidler (Mr Fleischer) had contributed the recipe for his awesomely good Linzer Torte to Dean Brettscheider and Lauraine Jacobs's book Baker: The best of International Baking from Australian and New Zealand Professionals (Allen & Unwin, 2001).

I think Mr Leidler was being a bit sneaky though, because when I first made it, it didn't taste like the one I always had at Fleischer's. But when I replaced the ground almonds in his recipe with ground hazelnuts, it got a lot closer. AHAHA Mr Leidler, you can't fool a true Linzer devotee :-)

As there are some lovely people around me who are dietarily challenged, I experimented and found that this Torte works well as gluten-free and dairy-free (see my asterisks below), although I would always use wheat flour and a good unsalted butter if I have the option.

Linzer Torte

200g plain flour*
1/8 tsp ground cloves
1/4 tsp cinnamon
170g ground hazelnuts
110g castor sugar
1 tsp lemon zest, chopped finely
225g unsalted butter*
2 hardboiled egg yolks, mashed and cooled
2 raw egg yolks, lightly beaten
1/2 tsp vanilla essence
300g blackcurrant jam

glaze: 1 egg and 3 tbsp cream*, mixed together lightly

*for a dairy free option: substitute Nuttelex for butter and leave out the cream from the glaze; for a gluten free option: use a special gluten free flour such as Orgran All Purpose Flour, which is a texture-balanced mixture of maize, corn flour and rice flour - you can get this at health food stores.

Set the oven at 175C. Sieve the flour with the cloves and cinnamon into a large bowl and add the ground hazelnuts, the sugar, lemon zest, the butter (at room temperature) and the mashed hard-boiled egg yolks. Mix well to combine - I did this with bare hands, like the old fashioned way of creaming butter and sugar - this is because you can feel much better if the mixture is well combined. Add the raw egg yolks and the essence and work this into a dough.

 Form the dough into a ball - it will be very soft - and wrap in cling film; refrigerate for an hour to firm up.
Butter and flour a Springform cake tim with a removable base, otherwise you'll never be able to get the Torte out of the tin. (Remember if you are going gluten or dairy free you must take care to use your alternative butter and flour substitutes in this process or you will contaminate your cooking.)

Flour a bench top and press out three-quarters of the pastry, reserving the rest in the fridge for later.  Using plenty of flour because it will be sticky and soft, gently roll the pastry out to about 1cm thick, or until you have enough to cover the base and halfway up the sides of the tin. If the pastry sticks to the bench (and it will - believe me, it will) use a metal spatula to loosen it from the surface and get it into the tin. Patch any cracks or tears with oddments of pastry and press into the tim firmly.

Pour the jam into the pastry base....

...And spread evenly. A good quality European blackcurrant jam is desirable, although bizarrely, the dreaded Coles has started to produce their own brand which is actually fantastic - points to the evil empire for that one.

Apparently raspberry jam is also acceptable, but for me a true Linzer Torte has blackcurrant filling. 

Then take the remaining pastry from the fridge and roll out, cutting into strips about 1.5cm thick and as long as the diameter of the tin. Place the strips in a lattice pattern on top of the jam surface.

I found it difficult to be neat about this because the pastry is so soft - it tends to stretch, crack and stick to everything :-(

Brush the lattice with the egg and cream glaze to add some shine. Replace the Torte in the fridge for half an hour to firm up, then put it straight into the preheated oven and bake for 30-35 minutes, until the pastry is browning at the edges.

Remove from the oven and CAREFULLY run a clean sharp knife around the edge of the torte to loosen the sides from the tin, then leave it to cool and firm up for a while before removing the sides of the tin.

This keeps well for up to a week and can be gently warmed in the oven before serving to freshen it up. 

Happy eating!

Gluten- and dairy-free babies with dummies

Babies with dummies – for no reason other than I thought they were cute :-)

This design is courtesy of Paris Cutler of Planet Cake.

 I guess they would be good for a new birth or a baby shower but you’d have to check whether the mother to be was cool with sinking her teeth into a cakey baby... personally it wouldn’t bother me but some are more sensitive about cannibalism :-)

 

This weekend I wanted to experiment with some new recipes for friends and colleagues who are gluten- and dairy- free. 

I ended up with gluten-free/dairy-free two ways: an original Dr Cupcake recipe of a cherry ripe cupcake, made with the juice from stewed cherries, and a Jaffa cupcake, made with orange marmalade. 

Both have a topping of 70% dark chocolate to give them a nice even surface and make them extra yummy!  

Recipes below, first to the decorating: 

First you need to cut large circles from flesh-coloured fondant for the top of the cupcake.

To get a lovely ‘flesh’ tone, mix a small drop of ivory colouring and a small drop of red colouring into a tennis-ball-sized piece of fondant icing.

When you place the large circle on top of the cupcake, use a ‘smoother’ like this rectangular piece of hard plastic to gently smooth and burnish using a circular motion. You can make your own smoother by cutting a rectangle of plastic from the packaging of toys, kitchen equipment, foodstuffs, etc. 

Then you need some small blue circles for the base of the dummy.

 Place the blue circle slightly more than halfway down the ‘face’, securing with a drop of water.

Make two small indentations above the blue circle for the eyes. I used the end of a small paintbrush. 

Then roll two tiny balls of white fondant for eyeballs and press into the indentations, fixing with a tiny drop of water. Indent two smaller circles into the eyeballs and roll black fondant into balls and fix in place – these are the pupils.

Make an indentation on either side of the face, about 7mm from the edge of the cupcake, to indicate where the ears should go. Roll two pea-sized balls of flesh coloured fondant for the ears, fasten into place with a drop of water each, and use an indenting tool to hollow out one side of the ‘ear’. 

Twist some small cones of yellow, brown, red or black fondant for the lock of hair, and fix to the top of the face with a drop of water. Then roll and cut a strip of pastel pink or blue fondant about 5mm wide and 10mm long. Place a dot of water in the centre of the strip and fold both edges in to the middle so they just touch. Wrap another strip of the same width but only 5mm long around the join and fasten it underneath. Push the ‘bow’ inwards from the sides to make it stand up a bit, and leave this assembly to dry for a few minutes. Then indent a hole in the top of the bow and fix a cachou in it with a drop of water. Place the finished bow just beneath the lock of hair, and fix with a drop of water. 

Finally, fashion a dummy handle from a pink fondant ball. First roll a thick short cylinder, stand it on end and narrow out a ‘waist’. Then press the top (above the waist) between thumb and forefinger to flatten into a circular disc, and piece this with an indenting tool. Leave to harden for a few minutes and fix to the blue base with a drop of water. 

A word on the cake recipes used:

Cooking gluten and dairy free cakes can be a bit tricky, because most flours contain gluten, and most cake recipes contain flour and often milk as well. I am not an expert on gluten but I understand that it is linked, or bound, to the starch component of grain flours (wheat, rye, barley, maize).

If you don’t often cook for food intolerances and allergies it is worth knowing that there are some traps for young players. Who would have thought for instance, that icing sugar could contain gluten? And yet, if you buy ‘soft icing mixture’ instead of pure icing sugar, you’ll see that it lists ‘wheat starch’ as an additive. THIS IS GLUTEN!! 

 

Also, if you are a fondant icing user, have you rolled out your fondant with cornflour – and if so, have you checked that your cornflour is gluten-free? Some are, some aren’t – and remember that even if you buy a lovely gluten-free cornflour today to use for your gluten-free cookery,  if you have used a gluten-containing cornflour to roll out fondant in the past and you are using fondant mixed or rolled previously, it will be contaminated with gluten. So be very careful because you don’t want to poison your friends :-)

The first recipe is a Dr Cupcake original. I adapted it from a standard gluten-free, rice flour cake. The texture of the rice flour is very fine and makes for a fine, crumbly and rather dry cupcake. This does not keep well – I recommend refrigerating or freezing if you are not eating them the same day (don’t refrigerate when they are fondant iced though because it will make the icing go tacky – you must just eat them straight away).  

The second recipe is one that my mum gave me years ago, you can make this as a loaf cake as well – it does sink in the middle, but you can fill up the dip with fruit (if making a loaf cake) or chocolate (if cupcakes, see below). These have much better keeping qualities, they should be okay for about five days, longer if refrigerated. The marmalade is really good in this cake, even if you don’t usually like marmalade – it stops the cake from being too sweet but keeps it very moist, almost syrupy, and a bit tangy. Yum!

Red Cherry Cupcakes

*Gluten-free / *Dairy-free

Makes 10 cupcakes

2 eggs

1 cup castor sugar

1 ½ cups rice flour

1 ½ tsp gluten-free baking powder (check packet)

Pinch of salt

½ cup vegetable oil

½ cup cherry juice (from stewed, tinned or fresh cherries)

Red food colouring

50 g dark chocolate 70% cacao (check packet to ensure there are no milk products)

Preheat oven to 180C. Beat eggs and sugar together until thick and pale. Stir in the rice flour, baking powder and salt until combined, then add the vegetable oil and cherry juice. Adjust the colour by adding the food colouring until you have a dark pink mixture. Spoon into cupcake papers and bake. Check after 20 minutes – the cupcakes are ready when the top springs back lightly when touched.

Wait for the cupcakes to cool, then heat some water in a small saucepan. Place a clean dry heatproof bowl on top of the saucepan and chop or break the chocolate into small pieces, placing these in the bowl. Stir occasionally until the chocolate is melted. Using a teaspoon, drizzle chocolate over the top of each cupcake and spread evenly with a spatula. Finish with rolled fondant (if using rolled fondant, be careful to use a gluten-free cornflour or pure icing sugar with no wheat starch added to roll the fondant out). 

 

Orange and almond cupcakes

*Gluten-free / *Dairy-free

Makes 12 cupcakes

3 eggs

100g ground almonds

50g castor sugar

1 tsp gluten-free baking powder (check packet)

175g orange marmalade

100g dark chocolate 70% cacao (check packet to ensure there are no milk products)

Preheat oven to 180C. Beat the eggs with an electric beater so that they are very thick, creamy and form a ‘ribbon’ – this will take between 5 and 10 mins at full speed. Mix the dry ingredients together and fold them carefully into the egg mixture, being as careful as possible not to lose the air from the eggs. Then add the marmalade and fold in. As soon as the mixture is evenly combined, spoon into cupcake cases and bake for about 20 minutes. Check cakes with a skewer – if it comes out clean, the cakes are ready. These cakes will rise, then fall in the middle quite deeply – this is normal. 

When cakes are cool, heat some water in a small saucepan. Place a clean dry heatproof bowl on top of the saucepan and chop or break the chocolate into small pieces, placing these in the bowl. Stir occasionally until the chocolate is melted. Using a teaspoon, drizzle chocolate into the centre of each cupcake, filling the dip entirely so that the top of the cupcake is a level ‘lake’ of chocolate. Leave in fridge to harden.

Finish with rolled fondant (if using rolled fondant, be careful to use a gluten-free cornflour or pure icing sugar with no wheat starch added to roll the fondant out).

Enjoy!