While typically eaten at Christmas, there is no reason not to enjoy this linzer tart at any time of year. An Austrian favourite of a short and flaky pastry tart shell filled with fruit preserves – most often redcurrant, apricot or raspberry jam (as this one is). It’s topped with more pastry in a lattice design then baked until golden all over.
The pastry has a good helping of almonds (often hazelnuts are used) which not only gives the pastry a lovely texture but also a wonderful toasty nutty taste. It’s not super sweet so that the majority of the sweetness for this tart is brought by the jam filling.
With just a simple process and ingredients, you’ll love how easily this linzer tart (or linzertorte) comes together. It’s rustic, gorgeous and simply delicious.
If you’re after another Christmas tart, try this fruit mince pie tart.
Never Miss a Recipe!
Get the latest recipes straight to your inbox.
What is linzer tart?
Linzer tart, named for Linz in Austria where it was created is a tart of a crumbly pastry filled with jam or preserves and topped with a lattice crust. The pastry is made using ground hazelnuts or ground almonds, along with flour and the tart is often decorated with nuts as well.
Linzer tart ingredients
For a tart that looks so beautiful, the ingredients list is extremely short. Just 7-8 ingredients plus some salt and water and the even better part is that all of these items are shelf-stable, pantry staple or fridge staples. You could potentially make this tart right this moment. It’s also a wonderful way to use up the collection of jams gathering on your fridges top shelf. Blueberry, strawberry, blackberry – mix them up and make a mixed berry linzer tart!
Jump to the recipe for full ingredients and instructions.
- Flour: Just plain flour / all-purpose flour.
- Almond meal: Sometimes called almond flour as well, you’re looking for just simple ground almonds. And if you can’t find it, you can grind up blanched almonds in your food processor to a coarse flour.
- Sugar: White granulated sugar is all you need. A little icing sugar / powdered sugar is lovely for dusting over the tart right before you serve.
- Butter: Use unsalted butter for your linzer tart and it must be cold.
- Eggs: I use large eggs. Make sure they’re cold.
- Jam: I use raspberry jam here, a classic flavour for a linzertorte. Apricot jam or redcurrant preserves are also very common. But let your imagination run wild. Choose your favourite jam or mix up all the jars you have in the fridge for a mixed berry linzer, for instance.
- Milk or cream: I use a little milk or cream depending on what is open and available in the fridge to mix with the egg yolk for my egg wash – these give it a really rich golden colour. But you can just use water or just use the whole egg instead of just the yolk.
How to make linzer tart
Classic linzer torte has a lattice topping which requires some gentle hands but you don’t have to do this kind of weave pattern. You could also use different shaped cookie cutters to cut out shapes and place them all over the top, overlapped slightly. Imagine star or gingerbread shapes at Christmas or heart shapes for Valentines Day. Or just use different sized round cutters, placing them randomly over the top, overlapping here and there.
Jump to the recipe for full ingredients and instructions.
1. Make the pastry
The pastry is so simple to make with the help of a food processor. Just combine your dry ingredients and butter in a food processor and blend it on low until the butter is about the size of peas.
Add the eggs and blend again until it looks like breadcrumbs.
Finally, dribble in the water while the processor is running until the dough just starts to clump. When you take the lid off, it will still look very crumbly but so long as it holds together when you squeeze it in your hand, it’s good to go.
2. Roll out the dough
First, gently knead the dough until it’s all sticking together in a somewhat smooth ball. Don’t knead it too much as overworking the dough will affect the texture. Now, cut the ball in half.
Roll out one piece of dough on a lightly floured surface, into a round about 28cm / 11 inches wide – it should be about 4-5mm/⅙-⅕ inch thick. Lay that into a tart tin and press the edges downwards into the corners of the pan leaving the overhang standing upright. Just trim a little of that off with some kitchen scissors, then chill for 2 hours.
With the second piece of dough, roll it into a rectangle at least 25x30cm/10×12 inches. Place that onto a baking sheet lined with baking paper and chill that too.
3. Fill the tart
Trim and dock the pastry base. That just means to run a knife flat to the edge to completely trim away the overhang, then use a fork to prick little holes all over the base of the pastry. Now, just pour in the jam and level it out.
4. Decorate the top
If you want to do a traditional lattice design, you’ll need to cut at least 14 strips (2cm/¾ inch wide) from your rectangle piece of dough.
Now, lay 7 of those strips running in the same direction across the tart starting with one directly down the centre to help you space them out. Next, you can simply run the other 7 perpendicular (at a 90° angle) to those over the top, or you can weave them into each other, like I have here. Make sure the edges all hang over the edge of the tart and don’t press the strips down, you just want them to lie gently on top.
Press the pastry all around the edges together at the same time pressing down at the edge to remove any excess overhang.
5. Eggwash and bake
Now, brush an egg wash all over the top of the tart – pay really close attention to getting into all the edges and joins of the pastry. Bake for 45-50 minutes until it’s a rich golden brown and the jam is bubbling at the top.
Tips and tricks
- Please weigh ingredients where possible. Baking really is a science and weighing ingredients is the most precise method to making sure you’re using the right amount of everything. A little too much flour will totally dry out your pastry crust.
- Don’t overwork the pastry. We want little bits of butter to stay that way in the pastry. As the linzer tart bakes, the butter melts and creates steam, in turn creating little pockets of air and this is what makes your pastry flaky.
- Don’t skip chilling the dough. The dough must be chilled before you use it, or it will just shrink too much as it bakes. Working the dough develops the gluten and this is what can make it tighten and shrink. The chilling not only allows the glutens to relax, it also firms up the dough and the butter in the dough.
- Let it cool completely. It needs to cool completely before you cut into your linzer torte. If not, the jam may just run straight out.
Substitutions
- Try using hazelnut meal instead of almonds. Hazelnuts are also very traditional in an authentic linzer torte.
- Change up the jam flavour. While raspberry, redcurrant or apricot are traditional, any flavour will work. Use your favourite or take the opportunity to use up what you have in the fridge. You can mix them to make your own jam flavour or simply place different flavours in different sections of the tart.
- Do an easy lattice instead of the weave pattern. While a weaved lattice top looks pretty, you will need to be very gentle with the pastry while you do it. If you don’t want to do that, just lay 7 strips in one direction, then the next 7 strips on top in the opposite direction.
- Use cookie cutters to decorate the top. Use whatever shapes you like to cut shapes out of the dough and overlap them over the top of the jam.
- Liqueur: Try adding a little Amaretto or Frangelico to the filling.
- Citrus zest: A traditional linzer tart will often have a little orange zest or lemon zest (or both) in the pastry dough too.
- Flavouring: Add a little almond extract or vanilla extract to the dough for even more flavour.
Don’t waste the dough
You’re bound to have some leftover pastry dough from this recipe but you can simply roll out the remaining dough and use cookie cutters to make some bonus cookies! Cook them for around 12 minutes until turning golden on the edges. Once cool, drizzle them with a simple icing (like some powdered sugar mixed with a little cinnamon and water) and let them set.
You can turn them into linzer cookies by sandwiching them with jam.
Storage and making ahead
Your linzer tart should be stored in the refrigerator in an airtight container for up to 1 week.
The dough can be made up to 3 days ahead and even rolled out and formed into the pan ahead of time. The dough can also be frozen, so if you don’t feel like using up all the bits to make cookies now, just freeze it for up to 3 months and make some later.
More recipes you’ll love
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Did you try this linzer tart recipe? Show it some love in the comments below.
Hungry for more?
- Subscribe via Email, Facebook, Pinterest and Instagram.
- Add Sugar Salt Magic as a Google Preferred Source.
Ingredients
- 325 g plain flour (all-purpose flour) (2 ½ cups/11 ½ oz)
- 150 g almond meal (ground almonds) (1 ½ cups/5.3oz)
- ⅓ cup granulated white sugar (67g /2.4oz)
- ¾ teaspoon mixed spice
- Pinch salt
- 200 g unsalted butter cold and cubed (7oz)
- 2 large eggs cold
- ¼ cup cold water
- 1 ⅔ cups raspberry jam (500g)
- 1 egg yolk extra
- 2 teaspoons water, milk or cream
For best results, always weigh ingredients where a weight is provided
Instructions
- In the bowl of a food processor, add the flour, almond meal, sugar, spice, cubed butter and a pinch of salt. Process on the lowest setting until the largest pieces of butter are the size of a pea.
- Add the eggs and process on low to combine, then with the processor running, slowly pour in the cold water and continue processing until the mixture starts to form large clumps.
- The pastry should still look crumbly but holds together when you press it together with your hands. Tip it out onto a clean surface and gently knead it together just a few times (not too much) until you have a smoothish ball off pastry dough.
- Cut the dough into two even pieces. Dust the surface and the first ball of dough with just a little flour, only enough to stop it sticking, and roll it out to circle about 4-5mm / ⅙-⅕ inch thick.
- Sit your rolling pin in the centre of the dough and fold the far side over the top, then lift and transfer it to a 9 inch round, fluted tart pan with removeable base.
- Gently press the sides of the dough downwards into the corners and press around the sides so that it’s tight up against the fluted edge and the pastry is standing upright. Trim a little of the overhang off, just so that it doesn’t flop over and ruin the shape then chill the pastry case for 2 hours.
- Shape the second piece of dough, along with any offcuts from the first piece, into a rough square then roll out into a squarish shape also about 4-5mm / 1/6-1/5th inch thick. Lay a sheet of baking paper onto a large sheet pan then lift the dough with the rolling pin, the same way you did with the first one and lay it onto the baking sheet. Chill for 2 hours also.
- Use a sharp knife to cut strips in the flat square piece of pastry about 2cm / ¾ inch wide.
- Take the pastry base out of the fridge and prick all over with a fork. Trim off the edges with a sharp knife.
- Fill the pastry base with the raspberry jam and spread over evenly.
- Lay or weave the strips of pastry lightly over the jam in a lattice pattern making sure they overlap the edge of the tart. Press around the edges with your finger to seal the edges and cut away any excess.
- Mix together the egg yolk and milk, then brush all over the lattice on top of the tart. Be careful to get all the pastry but try not to drag the jam over the pastry with the brush. Any part of the pastry without egg wash won’t turn golden.
- Bake for 45-50 minutes until the pastry is golden and the jam is bubbly. Let the tart cool completely before serving.
- Please take a moment to leave a comment & rating. It's appreciated and so helpful.
Notes
- Tablespoons: I use a standard Australian 20ml tablespoon (equal to 4 teaspoons). Check yours before measuring.
- All ovens vary. While this recipe is as accurate as possible, test for doneness 3-5 minutes before the recipe suggests as different ovens can vary.
- For best results, you should always weigh ingredients like flour and sugar. Kitchen scales are relatively cheap but if you can’t weigh the ingredients, use the spoon and level method (don’t scoop).
- Nutrition details are approximate only – scroll below the recipe to find the full nutritional information.
This post may contain affiliate links that earn me a small commission for my referral, at no extra cost to you. Thank you for supporting Sugar Salt Magic.
