Reviewed: Jan. 3, 2013

After making the first sheet of cookies, working with the dough was so difficult that I swore I would never do it again. HOWEVER after tasting one, I changed my thinking completely. These are incredibly buttery and flaky. Very subtle flavor. I used homemade Austrian apricot preserves for the filling. The contrast of the slightly sweet cookie with the tart preserves makes a perfect cookie. It's all about the finished look and the taste. Get over the fact that the dough is a bear to work with!

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Reviewer:

KATHY SINK

Reviewed: Nov. 4, 2012

For some reason, didn't work out for me, maybe because of my margarine substitution.

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VIVNIDHI

Reviewed: Dec. 26, 2009

This is a great recipe. I am from Eastern Europe so we made these growing up, but this recipe is actually much better than the one we had. The cookies are supposed to be dry when they come out of the oven, but they soften with time. That's why we always made these a couple of weeks before Christmas. The dough was very easy to work with and the cookies came out looking great. They didn't puff up at all. They are very tasty as well. The trick to get them soft faster after they are assembled is to put them in an air-tight container with a few apple pieces overnight. Thank you for a great recipe.

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Reviewer:

Denisa

Cooking Level: Intermediate

Home Town: Trencín, Trenciansky Kraj, Slovakia

Living In: Farmington, Maine, USA

Reviewed: Dec. 4, 2009

I just finished making a double batch of these cookies and I must say that I am very proud of my efforts. The cookies are beautiful, and the taste is exceptional. I didn't blanch the almonds, but I did toast them in a dry iron skillet before grinding them in a recently purchased coffee grinder. The dough was flattened into a disk and wrapped in plastic wrap before chilling over-night. I used parchment paper on my baking sheets and had no trouble removing them after they finished baking. The cookies were fairly labor intensive, but then I think any rolled cookie is work! I will be proud to include them on my Christmas cookie trays this year.

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Reviewer:

queennana

Cooking Level: Intermediate

Living In: Kannapolis, North Carolina, USA

Reviewed: Nov. 29, 2009

I am in Kathmandu with limited ingredients and machines, but this recipe worked perfectly. I made it as a free-standing torte on a baking sheet since the dough could stand up at the sides and stay up through baking. I made the base by pressing it, and rolled out the other half and cut strips for a lattice. Sticky and breaking but doable. I ground whole almonds with their skins in the blender; some were still in small bits and some were pulverized. I used semi-whole wheat flour since that's what I had; and omitted cloves since I don't like them. I didn't have exact measurements but the recipe came out delicious. I used our homemade apricot jam, which is tart, so one batch I mixed in extra sugar, but actually we liked the one with tart jam much better. A local Nepali lady asked me eagerly for the recipe.

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Reviewer:

BeckyLadakh

Reviewed: Jul. 29, 2009

This is by far and away the best linzer torte recipe! The dough is a little hard to work with (as expected), but the flavor is spectacular and makes any extra effort totally worth it!

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Reviewer:

Jenny333

Cooking Level: Beginning

Reviewed: Feb. 13, 2009

This was a good linzer torte recipe. I didn't think the dough was very hard to work with; I think it depends on how finely you grind your almonds. I blanched whole almonds and ground them a handful at a time in a blender. When I filled the blender past the top part of the blade, I got larger pieces of almonds. This technique also seemed to work better with perfectly dry (after blanching and peeling) almonds. As another reviewer suggested, rolling out the dough between two pieces of plastic wrap worked really well, too. I made a small tart and about eight filled cookies with this recipe. The tart took longer than 40 minutes to bake; 50 minutes with an egg wash was more like it, but it came out really well. A note about the jam: go ahead and spread it almost to the edge; it doesn't "spread out" like I thought it might during baking. Overall, these cookies were a lot of work, but for me that is part of the fun.

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Reviewer:

FooDee

Reviewed: Jan. 19, 2009

These cookies are amazing! I substituted toasted hazelnuts for the blanched almonds and used whole wheat flour. The dough is tricky to roll out, but managable and it's worth the work! When making the cookie version, have a little bowl of water handy to make repairs to the crumbling cookies before going in the oven. The mending works and the cookies turn out nice and crisp.

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Reviewer:

lisalaluna

Home Town: Truckee, California, USA

Living In: Kings Beach, California, USA

Reviewed: Jan. 7, 2009

They were excellent! My whole family loved the flavour. I cut them a bit large though, next time I will use a smaller cutter and roll the dough a little thinner.

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Reviewer:

kimberlyalex89

Reviewed: Dec. 17, 2008

these taste just like the linzer torte my hubby's german grandma makes. i was gonna beg her for the recipe then i found this!! my father in law even approves! thanks for sharing

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