By Michaele Garcia
December 12, 2021
A Traditional German Holiday Pie With Healthier Ingredients
One of my fondest childhood memories is my grandmother baking Linzer Torten for the whole family once December rolled around. To this day, I think that her recipe was the best. Needless to say that she incorporated a huge amount of butter and sugar. I continued that tradition and my family also came to appreciate the rich pie with nuts and spices until I reluctantly stopped baking the yearly Linzer Torte, over my daughter’s loud objections, due to health concerns. But skipping the traditional holiday baking felt like an important family tradition was missing. This is my second year of trying out alternatives and I finally baked one that my husband, food critic par excellence, approved, mentioning that it comes really close to the original. Does it really taste like the original with loads of butter, sugar and white flour? Of course not! The unmistakable flavor of saturated fat is definitely missing, but the flavor and texture is very close and the color is basically the same. You will be able to enjoy a holiday treat without the guilt. For me this type of baking is invaluable, I can once again eat one of my childhood favorite treats without being afraid of the health consequences 🙂
Linzertorte
Ingredients:
- 2 small, very ripe Hass avocados, mashed
- 1 ¾ c oat flour
- 1 ½ c almond flour (not too fine)
- 1 ½ c hazelnut flour
- ¼ c flaxseed meal
- 1 ½ c monk fruit sweetener or stevia
- 1 tsp baking powder
- 1 organic free-range egg
- ½ tsp cinnamon
- ½ tsp allspice
- ¼ tsp ground cloves
- ¼ tsp nutmeg
- ½ c low-sugar fruit preserves
- 1 egg yolk
Directions:
Mix all ingredients except preserves and egg yolk and knead until you have a smooth dough. Let rest for 15 minutes to let the nuts absorb the moisture in the mix. Grease a large pie pan with avocado oil. Using about ⅔ of the dough, roll it in a ball and then flatten it into the pie pan (you can push it in or use a rolling pin). Then, roll one or a few long rolls with some of the remaining dough (around ½ inch round), slightly flatten them and lay around the edge of the pie. Spread the preserves into the pie. Then use the remaining dough to either form a grid pattern or cut out stars or other shapes and put on the pie. Whisk the egg yolk and brush on the exposed dough on the edge and center patterns. Bake at 350℉ for about 45 minutes. Let cool well before cutting.
It depends on your pie pan if you will need all of the dough or have some left over. I like to also make mini pies in 6” pie pans or just make a few cookies with or without fruit preserve filling.
This dough is quite versatile and you can get creative with its use. Try different types of cookies or even bars, with or without jam, top with chopped nuts, try different shapes and sizes.
Avocados
There are two basically very different types of avocados, Hass avocados, which usually come from California and Florida avocados. The Hass variety is much smaller and contains less water and is therefore a better alternative for butter than the Florida grown avocados. I have started to experiment with different recipes and there are a few where I prefer the juicier Florida avocados. I am still in the experimenting phase and will post recipes as soon as I am satisfied with the flavors, texture and color. For this Linzer Torte recipe I prefer the drier buttery Hass variety.
Often, you will see that an avocado based recipe has a green tint to it. I am happy that this Linzer Torte does not look green, probably because of the largely brown colored ingredients.
Fruit Preserves
As this is a very healthy recipe, I also pay close attention to the ingredients in my fruit preserves. For the times I use preserves (like on my banana oat pancakes https://foodiewithpurpose.com/banana-oat-pancakes/) I make sure that there is no high fructose corn syrup, that the fruit is organic (if available), and I usually prefer it sweetened with fruit juice, but if sugar is used, no more than 12%. Please read the ingredient lists in the back of the label, because the front can often be misleading. What does “all natural” really mean, and I recently laughed out loud in the supermarket when I saw a label promoting that the preserves were made “with real fruit”! What else would they use? That thought is quite disturbing!
Flour
Oat flour:
I prefer oat flour to whole wheat flour simply because it is very good for maintaining a healthy cholesterol level, one of my former problems. I prefer the taste of oat flour to chickpea flour which is another healthy alternative and works well. I do buy the organic version.
Almond flour:
One of my favorite flours for baking, I usually buy a fine almond four. For this recipe I remember my grandmother grinding her own nuts and there were always tiny pieces of nuts which gave the pie a nice texture. I always try to find a not so finely ground almond flour for recipes like this Linzer Torte.
Hazelnut flour:
If you cannot find hazelnut flour you can substitute with almond flour, although the hazelnuts give this pie a very distinct flavor. Health food stores often have hazelnut flour or you can find it on Amazon.
Sweetener
Sugar is the source of a lot of our modern ailments, especially heart disease and diabetes. I try to completely stay away from it, but for certain occasions I find a little bit acceptable. For this Linzer Torte I use fruit preserves with sugar, although I try to find one with as little sugar as possible, preferably sweetened with fruit juice (still sugar!) but as for all my other sweet treats I use monk fruit sweetener or stevia. Those are the two sweeteners which are said not to spike our blood sugar levels and have a glycemic index of 0.
I hope you will try this recipe. For next year I will try to come up with more recipes for traditional Holiday baking with healthier ingredients.
Find more healthy recipes in my blog foodiewithpurpose.com
For now, as always, happy cooking! 🙂