We were really excited to try this challenge - it's been too long since we had a dessert in the house! It started out a little rough, discovering we didn't have enough flour or apples to make the full strudel, so we halved everything in the recipe. But things still didn't seem to go our way....
We started with the dough, and were worried by how wet it felt, but continued on.
Next we combined all the ingredients for the filling as directed. (We didn't have any grappa so we used Grand Marnier instead to soak the raisins).
We rolled out the dough on the tea towel, which worked out surprisingly better than we expected. We had heard from a German that you should be able to read a newspaper through the rolled out dough, so that was our goal.
The directions for how to put everything together, so we turned to the internet to see what other recipes said, and found a Daring Cooks challenge for apple strudel, so we followed her example.
The temperature given was way too high, so after 20 minutes of backing we turned it down to 150 for the rest of the time.
We didn't have a pan big enough (!!) for the strudel so we had to deform it a little to fit, and well, frankly, it's the ugliest thing I've ever seen. However, it tasted great, so that's some measure of success, right?
BUT the story doesn't end there. The very next day, we were invited to Ausgburg to make apple strudel with J's mentor Robert and his girlfriend, Karen (of Käsespätzle fame). They have a family recipe from Robert's Viennesse grandmother, so we couldn't miss the opportunity to do a comparison.
Just about everything in this recipe was different from ours, which they said was more typical to a southern germany strudel recipe. It's as follows (and trust me, the measurements really are this loose):
Oma's Appel Strudel (enough for 2 strudels)
dough:
250 g flour
4 Tbs oil
small cup water (tea cup size)
Filling:
1.5 kg sliced apples
raisins
cinnamon
sugar
butter (a lot)
2 cups(ish) breadcrumbs
100 g sliced/chopped almonds
1/2 ground almonds
Everything in this recipe goes in layers, vs. being combined beforehand.
Combine ingredients for dough, form into a ball, and let rest in the fridge while you prepare the apples.
Sautee breadcrumbs and ground almonds with 150-200 g butter (lots of butter) on the stove until toasted.
Roll out half the dough on a teatowel into a rectangular shape. (By the way, I was much more impressed with the feel of this dough).
Spread breadcrumb mixture all over the dough, leaving about an inch clean around outer edge, followed by chopped almonds.
Layer apples ontop of the entire area, followed by raisins.
Next, generously sprinkle a cinnamon sugar mixture overtop all the apples.
Gently fold over edges of dough onto apple mixture (should look like your making a rustic open-faced tart) and dab soft butter every couple inches around the edge.
Starting on one of the longer sides, lift the teatowel gently, so that the dough and apple mixture falls onto itself, and continue until it has rolled itself into a log. Hopefully, the dough is wide enough to cover over everything, but still is just on layer of dough all around.
To transfer to a baking sheet, lay the sheet even with the tea towel table, and simply lift the tea towel enough to flop it onto the baking sheet.
Dab the outside with more butter, and bake at 160 degrees Celsius for 40 minutes.
A trick to know when it's done: gently flick the outside of the strudel, and if it has a hollow sound to it, it's done. If it doesn't, it needs a little bit more time. (The filling is basically shrinking, while the outside holds it's shape)
oh! and another trick I had never heard of: We had to chop our own almonds since there weren't any at the store. In order to get the skins off, you boil some water and poor over the whole almonds. In less than 5 minutes, the skins come right off!
Sprinkle with powdered sugar and whipped cream to serve.
Now, I had THOUGHT we made an excellent strudel (with some growing pains), but after tasting this one, I decided I had been one-upped. The cinnamon-sugar combination did wonders, and it turned out you didn't need mascerated raisins. It was fantastic - one of the best, if not the best, I've ever had. Not to say ours wasn't delicious. They're almost two different desserts - ours tangy and citrusy, the other cinnamony sweet.
If you are willing to try this one again, (maybe for Thanksgiving up north?), I highly recommend the Oma recipe. And you can say it's from a viennese grandmother!
