(Not-so) traditional Viennese Apfelstrudel

Although I have been cooking for years now and think of myself as quite a confident cook, I have never dared to venture into making real, original, traditional Viennese apple strudel. The reason being that producing your own filo pastry has scared the living daylight out of me, I have visions of my mum in the kitchen, throwing some extremely thin dough around and catching it with her hands, always in danger of tearing it and having to start afresh.
So in an attempt to overcome my phobia, I asked my mum to give me a tutorial and I was extremely lucky, for the strudel turned out fine at the first try - and it was edible! I altered my Mum's recipe slightly by adding whole raisins and mixing some ground nuts in with the breadcrumbs - but as with many traditional recipes, there's so many variations around that I cannot claim to have invented it! You can serve the strudel cold with whipped cream or warm with a warm custard sauce or crème anglaise, vanilla icecream works well, too!
The great thing about this recipe is that you can use the filo pastry with many different fillings - try cherries, vanilla quark and raisins, plums, pears, poppyseed and plums, but also savoury options, like spinach and ricotta or potato, onion and bacon. Some people add sour cream or creme fraiche to the strudel, and some won't bake it on a rack, but put it in a pan, cover it with milk and cook until all the liquid is absorbed/set. In any case, grate your own breadcrumbs from old white bread (or even old brioche, if you have some at hand) rather than using artificially created ones from the supermarket, you won't believe the difference it makes!
I realise now that I have been paranoid for no reason and you will certainly be able to produce fine results even if, unlike me, you have not got a qualified psychotherapist around...

(Not-so) traditional Viennese Apfelstrudel
(serves 8)

For the dough:
250 g flour
125 ml water (warm)
1 tbsp oil
1 egg (optional - if not using, use less flour or more water)
pinch of salt
flour for dusting
butter for resting
oil for resting

For the filling:
1.2 kg apples, preferably slightly sour
150 g caster sugar
100 g breadcrumbs
70 g ground nuts (almonds, hazelnuts, walnuts or a mixture)
80 g butter
1 tsp ground cinnamon
100 g raisins
2 tbsp rum
100 g butter for baking
icing sugar for sprinkling

Put the flour in a small plastic bowl, add the salt, oil and egg (if using) and combine. Gradually add warm water and knead, using your mixer or a food processor, until you have a smooth dough which doesn't stick to the bowl. You might not need all the water, the dough shouldn't be sticky. Form a ball and brush thinly with some oil. Leave to rest for half an hour.
In the meantime, prepare the filling. Brown the breadcrumbs and ground nuts in a pan, without using any fat. Peel and quarter the apples, then cut into thin slices (ca. 2-3 mm). Soak the raisins in the rum, heat in a pan if they're very dry. If they don't absorb all the rum, drain and set aside.
Spread an old cotton sheet on the table and sprinkle with flour evenly, lay the dough on top, sprinkle it with some flour and roll it out evenly using a rolling pin. Brush thinly with melted butter and leave to rest for a few minutes, covered with a cloth. Rub your hands with flour and, passing the dough over the back of your hands and wrists, stretch the dough (you'll have to work fast) until it becomes transparent. Don't worry about the occasional hole, but make sure you don't get too many of them!
Lay the dough back on the sheet, sprinkle with melted butter, the breadcrumb mix, the raisins and the apples and dust with the cinnamon. Then cut off any thick ends, and, lifting the sheet in stages to successively fold the dough and filling over, create an even roll of about 10 cm width and 8 cm height. Brush with some melted butter. You can, at this point, cover the strudel up with some cling film and reserve until you're ready to bake it.
Pre-heat the oven to 220 C and bake the strudel for ca. 40 minutes, until golden brown. Brush with melted butter a couple of times while it's baking. Let cool down, sprinkle with icing sugar and serve, either with whipped cream or some warm, runny vanilla custard.

Comments

[jun]

looks really good! especially the dusting with icing sugar on top. :)

[Meg]

Johanna, did you know I came to this recipe from the Wikipedia entry on Strudel? Congrats!

I am definitely going to have to try your recipe one of these days: it's one of my new year's resolutions to make a proper apfel strudel!

[johanna]

wow! my recipe on wiki! thanks for letting me know...
good luck with the strudel, let me know how you got on!

[Stefan]

Wow, my hat's off to you. Strudel dough and puff pastry are the two (only) things you buy and don't even try do make yourself -- at least in Austria.

[Albert]

Also came to this recipe via wikipedia, going to try it now and will post my outcome...recipe looks fantastic and it will only be my ability in question. Thanks for the recipe.

[Albert]

Well, made this great recipe last night at work...I'm a chef in NY and had some help. Very easy and very nice. I also reconstituted dried cherries and used them with the same dough for a cherry strudel that was equally wonderful. Kudos on a great recipe. Thank you.

[Sarah]

'nother wiki goer here! I just got a whole bunch of apples given to me from the tree in our neighbours backyard, and have been looking for something to do with them. They're just the slightest bit tart, and I think they'll work beautifully with this recipe. Thanks!

[Marilouise Rijven]

hi, I am from Austrian decent and have made apfelstrudel for quite sometime now but would like to make it gulten free is this possiable, i have not been succesful, can you help. look forward to your reply

Marilouise

[ecobabe]

I made this strudel last night and it turned out really well. Thanks for a great recipe. I was surprised that the pastry was so easy and I well and truly impressed my dinner party guests. My apples weren't very tart so I added quite a lot of lemon juice to them after chopping which helped to liven them up. I used almond meal but next time think I will use crushed walnuts or similar for more flavour.

[Johan Bårdh]

Hello, i am Johan Bårdh and I am doing a projekt about apfelstrudel and i would like to have some information about it so if you could lenk any website i would preasuaete it.

[Ruth Graf]

I'm not Austrian ,but am married to a german man who's family comes from 10 kms inside the Austro -Hungarian border, and were repatriated back to germany after the war. Their culinary traits seem to be a hotch-potch of German, Austrian and Hungarian, but all very delicious. Your Apfel Strudel recipe is just like my mother-in law used to make, I too was a little wary of making the pastry, but once you give it a go, it really easy and the results are awesome in comparison to store bought filo. I love your recipes and comments, and have you listed on my "favourites", keep up the good work. Ruth

[Maria]

I made today this recipe as it is said in the directions and not found what all comments told about the wonderful result.
I am not a chef but been cooking for a long time, I recomend you to try another recipe.
I lost almost 1 hour preparing the material and then clenaning everything and it has been the first time I had to throw the food to the garbage. And I like trying many new dishes. I am really dissapointed.

[johanna]

Hi Maria,

siento mucho que hayas tenido tantos problemas con esta receta... la verdad es que a veces yo he encontrado problemas tambien cuando lo hice en el extranjero porque parece que hay tantos tipos diferentes de harina que no llevan el mismo resultado.
en austria hay una harina especial para pasteleria y strudel en particular, esa se llama "griffig" y hasta en alemania no se encuentra.
tambien me dice el dueno de mi panaderia que es imposible en ciertos climas trabajar con la misma receta aun si te llevas la harina porque cambia tanto el calor y la humidad del lugar.
y por cierto, strudel es algo bastante dificil y a mi no me salia nada bien durante muchos anos de praticar...

ahora cuando voy de viaje, me llevo hojas a "filo pastry" y preparo mi strudel con estas para estar segura ;-)

[Maria]

Sí la verdad fue frustrante. Lo primero porque lo intenté con un libro de cocina de la escuela francesa de Le Cordon Blue y tuve que tirar la masa y ayer hice vuestra receta.

Todos los comentarios apuntaban a un éxito seguro que me animé por segunda vez. Pude haber comprado la masa filo pero me animé a hacerla. Todo fue bien, hasta que lo saqué del horno. Entonces parecía como quemado por dentro. Y claro parecía que sabía a canela quemada.

Supongo que no es fácil hacerlo, pero ya te digo que todo fue bien hasta cortarlo, estaba duro y como quemado por dentro, más quemado por dentro que por fuera.

La harina que usé era especial repostería. Probé el relleno,, quitando la masa, y tampoco me resultó agradable al sabor.

Respecto al clima, en España es más bien seco, aunque este fin de semana ha estado lloviendo en Madrid, parecido al de Austria.

En fin una decepción para mis medallas cocineras.

Dile a tu jefe que debería poner más comentarios, ya te digo que lees las opiniones y despistan.

[Internaut]

Good images showing the filo pastry during the preparation of the apfelstrudel:

Chef Heiko Grabolle, SC, Brazil

http://heikograbolle.wordpress.com/2010/03/20/receita-de-apfelstrudel-do-chef-alemao/

[only one person is necessary to make the recipe, despite the appeareances... :o)]

[Ariane]

This is absolutely fantastic! I used your recipe for my blog. The filopastry is awesome how stretchy it is. I was so stunned i could get it so thin. Thank you!