Raspberry Linzer Slice

My husband is pretty gadget freak. It's not that he goes to buy every new product launched in the market, his fascination lies elsewhere. He loves exploring the gadgets that he buys by taking the parts out of the system and scrutinizing them. His behavior sort of reminds me of my brother's 7 years old son who equally has a fondness for breaking apart the toy cars brought for him. He likes to open parts of each car and lays them in order for his survey. Of course, the toys die a premature death with most of them becoming totally non-functional after they are dissected so mercilessly. In case of my hubby, not all the gadgets breathe their last in his hands but one or two, mostly those which belong to me, start showing up problems after he experiments on them. My laptop went for a toss recently and became so nonfunctional that I had to buy a new laptop. Anyway, not only he has fascination for conducting close examination of the mechanics of the gadgets, he also cherishes a liking for spilling water or coffee on electronic items, precipitating their demise. Immediately after we got married, he exactly ruined three items (thankfully all of them belonged to him) back to back within a matter of few days either by spilling water or tea - camera, laptop and a brand new phone. The phone was brand new, only two months old but within that short span he managed to drop it from our three-storied apartment once. The phone was lucky to have survived the fall but couldn't survive the tea.

 

Knowing my husband's spilling habit, I made sure to buy him only the cheapest of phones available in the market so that we don't feel the pinch of pain and money after an expensive one went out of form. But upon our coming to USA, he bought the galaxy which recently got soaked in coffee and now it is being repaired at some marooned repair station in Texas. The end result is I am facing a lot of trouble in connecting with hubby when he is away in office or outside. Our life has become so much entwined with phones that in the absence of this device, we just become unworkable. Today is one such day when I am missing to talk to him on phone and I need to wait for him until he shows up during lunch.

 

Few days back I went to a garage sale and there I came across a treasure trove of cooking books being sold at an incredibly low price. I bought few of them randomly and in one such I came across the following recipe which I tweaked a bit according to my own discretion. The output was successful with the raspberry jam exploding into a delightful sweetness inside mouth. Just yummmm!

Ingredients:                                                      Cooking time: 1 hr. approx.

ü  3 oz (90 gm) unsalted butter

ü  1 cup caster sugar (240 ml)

ü  3/4 cup raspberry jam, warmed (240 gm/ 7 1/2 oz)

ü  1 egg

ü  2/3 cup plain flour (85 gm/ 3 oz)

ü  1/3 cup self-rising flour (40 gm/1 1/4 oz)

ü  1 tsp vanilla essence

Hazelnut Topping:

ü  125 gm (4 oz) butter

ü  1/2 cup caster sugar

ü  2 eggs

ü  1 1/2 cup (120 ml) plain flour

ü  1/2 cup milk

ü  1/2 cup ground hazelnuts

ü  1 tbsp. custard powder

ü  1 tsp baking powder

Method:

1) Preheat the oven to 180 C/ 350 F. Lightly grease a square cake pan.

2) Beat eggs, butter, sugar together using an electric beater until the mixture becomes light and creamy. Add vanilla essence and whip again. Add the flour into the mixture and fold using a spoon. Spread the mixture evenly across the cake pan and top with raspberry jam, spreading it with a spatula.

3) Now make the hazelnut topping by beating together butter, sugar, eggs and milk until creamy and fluffy. Add custard powder, flour and baking powder and fold into the mixture. Add ground hazelnuts and mix again.

4) Spread the hazelnut topping even across the base and bake the cake for 45 minutes until a toothpick inserted at the center comes out clean.

5) Let it cool before cutting to serve.