Apfelstrudel

During my teen years, in the winter, my family would make an evening pilgrimage one town to the west to a very traditional Christkindlmarkt (Christ child market). In Germany and other parts of Europe, these Christmas markets in towns include stands selling food and gifts. The Christkindlmarkt I visited with my family, while in a small town in the USA, included stalls selling Wursts (sausages with all the fixins including hot potato salad and Sauerkraut), Scherenschnitte (delicately cut paper pictures), Zwetschgenmännle (little figurines made out of prunes and walnuts), Dirndls (traditional German dresses), Lebkuchen (gingerbread), and Strudel (flaky fruit-filled rolled pastries). The lady who makes the Strudels at the Christkindlmarkt is very nice, and her pastries are TO-DIE-FOR. While my rendition of Strudel was fair, my mouth still waters at the thought of the real, traditional thing.

Since all of the recipes in this blog are taken from my set of antique recipe books, I discovered that I have not one but two recipes for Strudel: one from The German & Viennese Cookbook and one from The Hungarian Cookbook! Therefore, I decided to make both of them and do a side-by-side comparison. I will be using this chart for the comparison:

Recipe	Pastry	Filling	Ease of Prep	Overall
German
Hungarian

Apfelstrudel/Apple Strudel

Pastry

3 C flour

½ tsp salt

1 egg, beaten

1 tbsp cooking oil

1 C lukewarm water

1 C butter

Mix flour and salt in a bowl and make a well in the center. Pour egg and oil into the well and mix thoroughly. Add water gradually to keep mixture smooth.

Mix until a soft, sticky dough is formed. Turn dough out onto a lightly floured board. Hold high above board and hit it hard against the board 100 to 125 times, or until dough is smooth and elastic. This was surprisingly fun! I had no idea that throwing pastry dough against the counter would transform the texture so much! Throwing the dough was even better than kneading for de-stressing.

Knead slightly and pat into a round. Brush top of dough with cooking oil and cover with an inverted bowl, then allow to rest for 30 minutes. Meanwhile, prepare filling components:

Filling

4 medium-sized apples (I used Jonagold apples, and they were delicious!)

2 tbsp vanilla extract

2 tbsp brown sugar

2 tbsp white sugar

1 ½ tsp cinnamon

½ tsp allspice

2 tbsp brown sugar

1 C walnuts, chopped

2 tsp grated lemon peel

2 tbsp dark seedless raisins

3 tbsp currants

2 tbsp butter

¾ C dry bread crumbs

Wash, quarter, core and pare apples. Cut into slices 1/8 in. thick and toss with mixture of vanilla and brown sugar. Set aside for at least 30 minutes, tossing occasionally.

Mix together sugars and spices and set aside.

Mix walnuts together with fruit and set aside.

Heat butter in a skillet. Mix in bread crumbs and toss until thoroughly coated and slightly browned.

Melt 1 C butter and set aside to cool slightly. Cover table with a clean cloth (I used an old bed sheet). Sprinkle cloth with flour. Place pastry dough in center of cloth and roll into a 12 in. square. Using a soft brush, lightly brush off any flour on top of the dough, then brush with cooking oil (the oil aids in preventing the formation of holes during stretching.)

With palms of hands toward the table, reach under dough to center and lift slightly to stretch, being careful not to tear dough. Lower dough back to table and continue with each side of dough as you walk around the table. If holes appear, do not attempt to patch them. Try to maintain the relatively square shape of the dough during stretching. Keep stretching carefully until dough is as thin as tissue paper. I stopped before my dough was quite THAT thin, because I was afraid of tearing it, but it was definitely see-through. I managed to stretch my 12 in. square out to about 3 ft. in diameter, which was pretty cool. If edges are too thick, trim off with kitchen shears. Allow dough to dry in place for 5 minutes, but do not over-dry.

Drizzle dough with some of the melted butter. Sprinkle bread crumbs evenly over one half of the dough.

Drain the apples and layer evenly over bread crumbs. I made sure all of my apple slices were laying in the same direction to facilitate rolling the pastry.

Sprinkle fruit/nut mixture over apples.

Sprinkle spice mixture over filling. Drizzle with remaining melted butter.

Fold dough just over filling on three sides. Beginning at narrow folded end, lift the cloth with both hands and pull tight to roll dough over filling. Pull cloth toward you and continue rolling until the Strudel is all rolled up. Cut Strudel in half and gently place on baking sheet. Brush top with melted butter.

Bake at 350^oF for 35 to 45 minutes or until Strudel is golden brown and crackles slightly on top when touched. Baste and brush with melted butter about 4 times during baking. When I removed my Strudel from the oven, I realized that the basting probably had not been necessary. I am not sure if I didn’t stretch the pastry thin enough, or if the basting was too much, but the top was a little tough and not very crackly.

Remove Strudel to cooling rack. Cut Strudel into 1 or 2 in. slices and served with whipped cream or powdered sugar.

Like I said above, while this is very good, it cannot compare with the flaky confections of the lady at the Christkindlmarkt. Still, a highly satisfactory holiday dessert.

As for the comparison, this is the first of the two Strudel recipes from The German& Viennese Cookbook. For the pastry, I think it tasted good, but it was a little bland and a little tough, so I give it a 4/10. For the filling, the apples were sliced very thin by my helpful husband so that the pastry rolled nicely, but they were a little mushy when the Strudel finished cooking. However, I liked the fruit/nut mixture and the spices, so I give the filling a 7/10. As far as the ease of preparation, the recipe in the book was a little difficult to follow due to formatting, and I had to go digging for a cloth big enough to use for the pastry. Additionally, stretching the pastry took quite a lot of time and patience, and leaning over the table made my back hurt! But, good dessert is always worth working for, so I’ll give the preparation a 4/10. That means that the German recipe for Apple Strudel receives an overall 15/30. Not too shabby. I wonder how the Hungarian recipe will stack up?

Recipe	Pastry	Filling	Ease of Prep	Overall
German	4	7	4	15
Hungarian

Have a question or a request? Put it in the comments below and I’ll be sure to respond. Fröhe essen!