INGREDIENTS:

Dough:

250g Flour (cake flour, or Austria 700, I’m not sure it should not be bread flour. I used AP flour and it worked fine)

2g Salt

1 Egg

100g Lukewarm water

20g Veg Oil (like sunflower, very neutral)

Filling:

100g Breadcrumbs

50g Butter

140g Sugar

10g Cinnamon

1 KG peeled, sliced, and chopped granny smith (or other tart) apples. Having different sized apples allows some to stay more firm and some to release their juices.

170g Raisins (soak for 24 hours in rum prior to adding to filling, drain before adding :D)

10g Lemon juice (one lemon’s worth)

1 shot of rum (from the soaked raisins)

INSTRUCTIONS:

Dough:

Combine all ingredients and knead until it loosens from hands and table. Form into a ball, wrap in plastic, put in fridge for 1 hour.

Make the filling.

Remove dough from fridge, remove plastic, lay out a towel, sprinkle flour on the towel (a fair amount).

Put dough in bowl of flour and turn it over a few times to coat in flour.

Place dough on the towel in the center. Press down the edges of the dough all around (can be a small rectangle or circle, doesn’t matter) until it makes a bit of a hill of dough with all the edges pressed down.

Start rolling out the dough from the center, but really roll from like the sloping edge of the hill of dough all around in different directions until it’s about the size of a large pizza. Then coat the backs of your hands with flour and pick up the dough. Using the backs of your fists, start stretching the dough, from the middle, along the edges a bit. As the middle becomes thin and the edges are still somewhat thick, use your fingers to stretch the edges so they are thinner. You may be supporting the dough with your elbows by this point since it will be quite large.

If it’s unwieldy, it’s probably big enough to return it to the towel. Fix any holes which may have occurred by folding over a bit of the dough and pressing it back together. Not terribly necessary since everything will be rolled up in many layers, but if it will cause a problem when adding filling, fix the hole.

Filling:

Heat the butter in a pan, add the breadcrumbs and roast until they take on a golden-brown color.

Mix sugar and cinnamon together

Combine all filling ingredients

Place the filling on the dough in a wall or mound, about 5-6” tall (ish). Flip the dough edge over the filling and tuck gently. Brush with butter. Pick up the towel to roll the dough and filling over, once. Brush with butter. Roll until there is about 4” of dough left, brushing the top with butter each time the roll is turned. Lift the last dough over the top and tuck in around the edges  Twist the ends to make a bit of a knot. Transfer (using the towel) to a buttered (or silicone matted) baking tray and then lift the towel up to flip (gently) the strudel off the towel onto the baking tray.

Massage into shape if it’s cattywompus.

Brush the top with butter.

Bake at 200*C (392*F) for 25-30 min. until it’s a golden brown.

Brush with butter when it is removed from the oven.

Dust with powdered sugar before serving.

Rhubarb variation:

Did not have bread crumbs but will try to use them next time. It was a tad extra juicy, bread crumbs might help. Would toast as above for apple filling.

140 g Sugar

Spices! I used cinnamon, cardamom, & ginger, I didn’t do much measuring. More ginger and cinnamon than cardamom, but next time might do that differently.

1 Kg Rhubarb, chopped

Raisins soaked in something alcoholic. I used 1 shot (ounce) of Chambord, I figured it might be good with the rhubarb.

Didn’t bother with lemon juice since rhubarb is plenty tart.