These cookies are much easier to bake than one might first think. You just make the dough, roll it out, cover first with jam, then a criss-cross-pattern of dough stripes, bake, and cut into small cookies. That’s it! Be careful with the clover, though; better use a bit less than too much, or the other flavours don’t stand any chance.
For about 50 cookies you need:
- 300g flour (I used spelt 1050)
- 100g ground hazelnuts
- 80g sugar
- 1 tsp baking powder
- a pinch of salt
- 1 tsp cinnamon (Ceylon, if possible)
- 1 pinch of ground cloves (or more, if you like a stronger taste)
- 200g butter or vegan margarine
- about 50ml (vegan) milk
- 100g red currant jam
- 80 g raspberry jam
- one egg yolk and 1 Tbsp milk for the wash (optional)
Combine flour, hazelnut, sugar, baking powder, salt, cinnamon, and cloves in a baking bowl. Add butter (cut in small cubes) and work with your fingertips until fine and crumbly. Add enough milk so that you can form the dough into a ball.
Take about ⅔ of the dough and roll it out into a rectangular form (mine was 25cm*35cm). Place the rectangle on an oven pan covered with a parchment paper. (If you want, you can roll the dough out on the parchment paper already - that way, you don’t need to worry about whether it will break when you move it!) Combine both jams in a bowl and spread them evenly on the dough.
Now, roll the rest of the dough about 3 mm thin. Cut out long stripes about 0,5cm wide with a knife or with a pastry wheel. Arrange the stripes to form a criss-cross pattern as in the picture. If you want, you can brush the stripes with egg yolk and milk - this gives a very beautiful colour to the cookies!
Bake in a preheated oven (190 C) about 25 minutes, or until thoroughly cooked. Let cool, then cut into long rectangular cookies, about 2cm wide and 7cm long.
P.S. I first tasted Linzer Torte in Café Goldegg, a coffee shop in Vienna that just might have the best coffee in the world. The cakes were awesome as well. Service was impeccable. And yet: I’ll never go to Café Goldegg again. Why? Because happy children are not welcome there. Every time we went there with a crying child, it was just fine. But when we once managed to have five happy children with us, it was a problem. The owner came personally to tell us that loud laughter was not allowed in a coffee shop. I mean, REALLY. How screwed-up is that?
