Apfel Strudel Results: 2 Ways

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!

Culinary Challenge 3: Apfelstrudel!

'Tis the season for apples! I know none of us are really baking fiends but I figured we could use some seasonal german baking for the start of the cold weather.

Strudel Dough:
250 g of flour
1 pinch salt
180 g melted butter
325 g sour cream
flour for rolling

filling:
1.5 kg sour apples
juice of 2 lemons
125 g rum raisins
100 g slivered almonds
200 g sour cream
1 tsp vanilla flavoring
1 teaspoon grated lemon rind
1 / 2 tsp cinnamon, 150 g sugar

Besides these:
100 g melted butter
100 g ground almonds
baking paper
20 g powdered sugar

1. Sift together flour and salt, mix together melted butter and sour cream and add to flour mixture. Stir outside to the inside to form a smooth dough.

2. Let the dough rest covered in a warm place 30 minutes.

3. In the meantime peel the apple, core, cut and divide and drizzle with the lemon juice.

4. Add rum-soaked raisins and sliced almonds to the apple mix. Combine sour cream with the vanilla flavor, the lemon rind, the cinnamon and sugar, stir and add to apples.

5. Knead strudel dough on a floured work surface, pat and roll out thinly.

6. Let the dough rest during the roll-out several times, then lay it on a clean tea towel.

7. Brush the dough with 2 / 3 of melted butter and sprinkle with the ground almonds.

8. Distribute apple mixture, using the towel to roll up the dough into a strudel

9. Place the strudel on a baking sheet covered with baking paper, spread with remaining butter and bake in a preheated oven at 200 Celsius. Bake about 50 minutes until golden brown.

10. Remove The apfelstrudel, sprinkle with powdered sugar, cut into slices to serve.

This recipe comes from a German cookbook (and is therefore poorly translated), aptly named 'Großmutters Apfelkuchen,' and has a good 40 pages of various apple cakes. So let me know if you want another one!

Good luck!

Creamy Pasta with Tomato Confit and Fresh Goat Cheese: Results

When I first looked through the list of ingredients, I felt confident we would have no problem finding everything. Well, it turned into a dish full of substitutions, and yet, it still turned out absolutely fantastic. We both really loved this one. Nice work!

Substitutions as follows:
-no plum tomatoes here, so we worked with small vine ripened and used 5 instead of 3.
-completely forgot to get the chicken stock, so ended up using a veggie bullion cube. ew.
-couldn't find Ditalini in the 4 grocery stores we went to, so we opted for Gobbetti, which basically look like little worms, but were chosen for their size and non-ribbed surface.

We started with the tomatoes: blanched first to get the skins off easily and and cooked them with the oil and herbs as instructed.




Next we sauteed the onions and butter and added the dry pasta and garlic until they started to toast a little.




We added veggie broth, one ladle at a time until thoroughly cooked.

Next we stirred in the chopped tomatoes and cheeses. And finally the fresh basil and chives.




So easy!

As I said, we were really thrilled with the results, but there were a couple things we weren't so sure about. We found the tomatoes, especially for the work that went into them, disappointingly subtle. They added a hint of color, which was nice, but that was about it. Even when you singled out a piece to eat on it's own, I didn't think the flavor different enough to warrent the work (and the olive oil!). The cheeses were by far the dominant flavor, which I thought also concealed perhaps how the pasta was cooked. What the risotto style did perhaps give it was the flavored 'sauce' that the goat cheese could blend with. I've done a goat cheese pasta before and was incredibly dissapointed at the texture - no moisture to keep the pasta slippery. It was dry and unapatizing. I'm realizing now, that it needs something else to keep it moist, and that's what this process must be doing. The fresh basil and chives really added a lot to the final product. I think they are key ingredients not to skip. In fact, I would say they're more important than the tomato!

CD Challenge 2: Creamy Pasta with tomato confit and fresh goat cheese.

This challenge was surprisingly easy and fast. Rachel Ray might have it on 30 min meals pretty soon. I really think poaching the tomatoes brings out some excellent flavors. I'm also excited to use the reserved oil, it may make some great salad dressing. Last time we poached something in oil, it turned out to be the best salmon we ever had - but that one entailed some constant temperature surveillance. However, I'm really starting to think this oil poaching thing has something to it - like a little Magic!

We started by peeling and chopping the tomatoes, seeds are on the right. I just peeled the tomatoes with a knife, but it might be easier to score them and dunk in boiling water for a few seconds.

The tomatoes in the oil

This was the smallest pasta we could find. I'd be curious to see how different it would have been had we been able to find the recommended pasta.

Here's a picture of our well-browned, as opposed to "golden" pasta. We were worried that it might taste a little too toasted, but it turned out to be fine.

And the final product. S thought the sauce was maybe a little too tangy, but I liked it. It was definitely an interesting way to make pasta, and maybe the easiest way to ensure that the pasta stays al dente.

Spätzle (pronounced 'Spaitz-le'). Better than mac and cheese??

This past weekend J's and my attempt to hike in the mountains outside Munich was thankfully thwarted by bad weather. I guess we're not the only ones that think we shouldn't messing with nature. In it's place, we spent the day in Augsburg (who's U.S sister city is Dayton) wandering the streets, 'hiking' through the woods in the rain, and meeting new people connected to J's mentor here. The best part was finding ourselves in all these apartments, and seeing how people live, and of course, how the eat. That night, we were invited to a friend's house, along with 10 other people for a simple communal dinner or shared ingredients on hand. I jumped at the chance, particularly when I heard the main course was going to be homemade spätzle. I've only had this once at a restaurant in Heidelberg, and it was so bad I was prepared to leave it be, but I figured if 10+ people were prepared to plan a Saturday night around it, they must be good at making it. Let's just say it made up for that hike through the rain!

S, sad to say, I couldn't make this one a challenge due to the key role onions play. They really are crucial to the final product. But I'm convinced if you were EVER going to like onions, it would be in this dish! That night we also made a mushroom cream sauce with mushrooms we had found on the hike. (I'm using that 'we' liberally, as one of the guys with us was a forester and knew which mushrooms were edible, and I did not in fact, do any of the actual mushroom picking). BUT, combined with salt, pepper and cream after being sauteed in a closed pot for a half hour, they made an amazing sauce for the 'noodles.' So maybe you could try this?

We started by combining the incredibly simple ingredients to make the dough. When I think dough, I think something that should be kneaded, but this was more like a batter it was so soupy.



At the same time we began to saute the onions in butter. Lots of onions.

After the dough was ready, we scooped two scoops worth into this fun little spätzle contraption, sort of like a mandolin, that pushed the dough drops into a boiling pot of water below. I was told this device is unnecessary - you can easily use a collander and push through with a wood spoon.



The dough rises to the top in 1-2 minutes, at which point you remove the spätzle with a slotted spoon and place into a small buttered lasagna pan. As the dough takes a few batches, you can keep it in the oven on warm in between. After each batch, layer with sufficient amount of grated gruyer and bergkäse (or emmanthaler) and pepper.




Repeat this process until you've used all the dough.

Spread onions on the top layer and place back in the oven until cheese is melted.

The sooner you serve, the better, as the cheese is still nice and soft.




Ingredients:

Spätzle dough (serves 4)
-500 ml flour
-1/4 liter water
-5 eggs
-1 tbs salt

1 cup grated gruyer
1 cup grated Emmanthaler
pepper
3 onions (a total guess)

J says this is his favorite meal he's had since he's been here. Just to give you an idea!

Peach Ice Cream

A week ago, before the unseasonably cold weather set in, M and I made ice cream with the last of the season's fresh peaches. Since the weather's been in the 40's and rainy, peace ice cream seems out of place. Last Sunday, though, the sun was still shining and the weather was warm. The ice cream allowed us to carry a little bit of that through the cold week.

To start, we skinned the peaches and sliced them up, in preparation for maceration with sugar.



The peaches macerated for several hours in the refrigerator, while we set about making the custard base.



Once the custard base reached the appropriate temperature, we placed that in the refrigerator to cool. After several more hours, we removed the peaches, and blended half of them. The blended half were added to the custard, while the other half remained, to be added into the ice cream after it finished mixing in the ice cream maker.

This is what it looked like when it went into the machine



and this is what it looked like when it came out.



And here's what it looked like when we added in the chopped peaches.



Of all the ice cream we've made so far, this has been our favorite. It was creamy and sweet, yet tangy. It was the perfect conclusion to summer, and with the cold weather finally here, we're ready to transition into fall flavors.

Peach Ice Cream*

Ingredients

• 2 pounds ripe peaches
• 2 teaspoon fresh lemon juice
• 1 cup plus 2 tablespoons sugar, divided
• 1 1/2 tablespoons cornstarch
• 1 3/4 cups heavy cream
• 1 3/4 cups whole milk
• 4 large egg yolks
• 1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
• 1/4 teaspoon pure almond extract

Directions

Cut an X in bottom of each peach, then blanch in boiling water 15 seconds. Transfer with a slotted spoon to an ice bath to stop cooking. Peel peaches and cut into 1/2-inch pieces. Toss with lemon juice and 3/4 cup plus 2 Tbsp sugar in a large bowl. Let macerate, covered and chilled, at least 8 hours.

Whisk together cornstarch, 1/4 tsp salt, and remaining 1/4 cup sugar in a heavy medium saucepan. Add cream and milk and bring to a boil over medium heat, whisking constantly. Add to yolks in a slow stream, whisking constantly, to temper, then pour mixture back into saucepan.

Cook, stirring with a wooden spoon, just until custard coats back of spoon and registers 170°F on an instant-read thermometer, 1 to 2 minutes (mixture will be thick). Strain through a fine-mesh sieve into a metal bowl and stir in extracts. Chill custard, its surface covered with parchment paper (to prevent a skin from forming), until cold, at least 4 hours.

Transfer 2 cups peaches with slotted spoon to a bowl.

Purée remaining peaches and liquid in a blender until smooth. Add purée to custard and freeze in ice cream maker, then transfer to a bowl and stir in reserved peaches.

Transfer to an airtight container and put in freezer to harden, about 2 hours.

*from the June 2008 edition of Gourmet magazine

Culinary Drift Challenge #2

Creamy Pasta with Tomato Confit and Fresh Goat Cheese

This pasta dish is cooked risotto-style, which sounds intriguing. I hope you don't have any trouble finding the ingredients. Feel free to make substitutions where necessary.

Ingredients

1 cup extra-virgin olive oil, for poaching
3 plum tomatoes—peeled, quartered and seeded
2 thyme sprigs
1 bay leaf
2 garlic cloves, minced
2 tablespoons unsalted butter
1 small onion, coarsely chopped
Kosher salt
1/2 pound ditalini or other small-cut pasta (1 1/2 cups)
3 1/2 cups chicken stock or low-sodium broth
1/2 cup soft fresh goat cheese (4 ounces)
1/2 cup tightly packed freshly grated Parmigiano-Reggiano (2 1/2 ounces), plus more for serving
Freshly ground pepper
2 tablespoons snipped chives
2 tablespoons finely shredded basil leaves

Directions

In a medium saucepan, combine the olive oil with the tomatoes, thyme, bay leaf and half of the garlic and bring to a simmer. Cook over low heat until the tomatoes are very tender, about 15 minutes. Discard the thyme and bay leaf. Using a slotted spoon, transfer the tomatoes to a work surface and coarsely chop them; reserve the olive oil for another use.

In a large saucepan, melt the butter. Add the onion and a pinch of salt and cook over moderate heat, stirring, until softened, 5 minutes. Add the pasta and cook, stirring, until golden in spots, about 2 minutes. Add the remaining garlic; cook for 1 minute.

Add 1/2 cup of the chicken stock to the pasta and cook over moderately high heat, stirring constantly, until nearly absorbed. Continue adding the chicken stock, 1/2 cup at a time, stirring and cooking until it is nearly absorbed between additions. The pasta is done when it is al dente and suspended in a lightly thickened sauce, about 17 minutes total.

Stir the tomatoes into the pasta. Off the heat, add the goat cheese and Parmigiano-Reggiano and stir until melted. Season with salt and pepper, stir in the chives and basil and serve right away, passing additional Parmigiano-Reggiano at the table.

Source: Food and Wine, October 2008

Official Post Date: October 31, 2009, 11:59 pm.