Apple Strudel | Apfel Strudel

‘Apple Strudel’ is a popular European dessert of Austrian origin, known as ‘Apfel Strudel’ in the native language. In German, ‘Apfel Strudel’ literally means whirlpool of apple. This fingersmacking apple based dish is considered as the National dish of Austria, alongside a couple of other dishes.

What is an Apple Strudel?

The Apple strudel contains chopped / grated apples mixed with cinnamon and vanilla for flavour alongside raisens, nuts and sugar for taste and bread crumbs to bring all the ingredients together; all these wrapped in a buttery soft, thin layer of flour.

Apple strudel is traditionally baked with apple filling, wrapped with the strudel dough as a single piece of bake and later sliced and served with powdered sugar drizle. Here, I have rolled the dough into a thin sheet, divided the sheet for individual strudel pieces, filled it with apple filling, wrapped tightly, marked, baked and served with powdered sugar drizle. Individual pieces are neat to serve and eat.

Now you must be joking! Elastic and thin Strudel dough at home ?!

Traditionally, Austrian ladies prepare these thin outer buttery soft layer in no time by swinging the dough with their fist. But in reality, not all of us here are experts in doing so. Having said that, it certainly is not a Herculian task to make this thin layer using the dough. We certainly need not settle down with store purchased pastry sheets. One can make the outer layer at home, which is thin, buttery soft and which tastes heavenly when out of oven !!! It is said that the dough should be so thin that one should be able to read a newspaper through it. Well, let’s not get too ambitious here, but yes, let’s aim for a thin layer of sheet, which is good enough to wrap the apple filling and yet comes out as a super soft bake.

Are you serious – Apple strudel – with home made strudel dough – all this, right at the very first attempt?

Yes, here I will tell you, how you can bake Apple strudel at home and still get it right, the very first time, in no time !!! There is certainly no fixed way of arriving at the thin sheet. You can certainly opt for how you want to do it, depending on your convenience.

Can we bake Apple strudel with store purchased Pastry sheet / Phyllo sheets?

Yes, you can certainly use a store purchased pastry sheet / Phyllo sheet and skip the dough preparation part and get your instant Apple Strudel ready for your evening coffee !!!

I have baked Apple strudel even with the store purchased pastry sheets at times and it looks as below. It tastes equally good.

Is preparing the filling a time consuming task?

No, not at all !!! Infact, you can prepare one, just 5 minutes before the dough is ready to be rolled.

Traditionally, rum is used to soak the raisens while baking this delicacy. They could simply be soaked in water too. Here, I have soaked them in Pineapple juice for about 20 minutes. Well, if you have time, you can soak it for even longer. Pineapple extract imparts a good taste to the raisens. You may even use Orange extract in place of pineapple if it is convenient. Or even settle down with water, if you don’t have either of the fruits at home. I have retained the apple peel here unlike the traditional way where the apples are peeled and grated. The nutrients are in the peel and why throw them away, when they are, trust me, doing no harm to the dessert. Well, if you want, you may remove the peel, but I would suggest you retain it.

Autumn is that time of the year, when in Europe, grapes, apples, pumpkins and nuts are harvested. Apple Strudel is a dessert of celebration in Autumn and often found in the Sunday Brunch table among the German / Austrian households.

Well, a good way to mark the Oktoberfe(a)st is to bake and eat the deliciously irresistible Apple Strudel. It gets so even before you take the rack out of the oven!

Few other bakes that you may like to try :

Hefezopf 

Eggplant Mini Pizza 

Easy Peasy Choco Chip Cookies 

Easy recipe to bake Baklava at home

For more bakes and dessert recipes, do check out our Desserts section.

Having said that, let’s quickly look into the recipe :

Total Time: 80 minutes
Preparation Time: 40 minutes
Baking Time: 40 minutes
Makes: 10 pieces

Ingredients :

Strudel dough :
Flour: 1.5 cup
Salt: a pinch
Butter (Room temperature): ¼ cup
Lukewarm water: 1/3^rd  cup

Strudel filling:
Golden raisins: ¼ cup
Pineapple juice: 2 tbsp.
Apples: 2 (Finely chopped)
Lemon juice: 1 tbsp.
Cinnamon Powder: 1.5 tsp.
Sugar: 1/3 cup
Walnuts: ¼ cup (Broken)
Vanilla essence : 1 tsp.
Bread crumbs: ¼ cup
Butter/Ghee: To brush

Quick Video Recipe: 

 

Method:

• As a first step, soak the raisens in pineapple juice and keep aside

• Next, in a bowl, combine the pre-sifted flour, salt, butter and water together and knead to form a smooth dough. Knead for about 3 to 4 minutes. Cover with a cling sheet and let it rest in a warm place for about 30 minutes

• Meanwhile, you can clean and chop the apples finely. I prefer retaining the peel as well (the idea is why discard the fibrous and edible peel when it actually adds on to the taste)
• In a bowl, add the chopped apples, cinnamon powder, sugar, broken walnuts, soaked raisens and lemon juice, vanilla essence and mix well. Keep aside

 

• On a flat surface, put the baking sheet. Dust it. Place the dough and add some more flour over it. Now, gently flatten it. Place another layer of baking sheet over it and keep rolling and stretching until it flattens and becomes super thin

• Meanwhile, preheat the oven at 200 °C
• Now, carefully remove the top layer of baking sheet. Using a pizza cutter or a sharp knife, mark the rolled sheet to form individual strudel pieces (as shown in the video and picture below) 

• Add a spoonful of the prepared apple filling in one of the divided part. Carefully flip the sheet, close and wrap the mini strudel. Place it in the lined rack. Repeat the step with other pieces

• Once all the rolled dough is turned to beautiful apple filled strudels, carefully mark the strudels diagonally. This will ensure that the heat penetrates inside and bakes evenly

 

• As a next step, gently brush the strudels with butter and place in the oven. Bake at 200 °C for about 35 to 40 minutes or until they turn light golden in colour

 

• Remove from oven and let it cool for a few minutes
• Transfer the strudels to serving plates, sprinkle powdered sugar generously over it and serve it as is or with icecream or vanilla sauce

 

Note :

• Adding a pinch of salt to the dough brings a lot of difference in the taste. Try not to skip this
• Roll the dough as thin as possible for best result
• You may add nuts of your liking in the apple filling mixture. A pinch of cardamom to the filling too would add on to the flavour. You may replace white sugar with brown sugar too, if required
• I would suggest you to retain the peel while preparing the filling as you would be retaining the nutrients of the apple, without affecting its taste in any which case
• Serve the strudels warm. The above strudel can be eaten as is with sprinkled powdered sugar, but you may relish it with a scoop of vanilla ice cream or vanilla sauce too
• If you are using the store purchased pastry sheets (In German it is called as , blätterteig, it is available in any supermarket), you can follow the same procedure, except for the strudel dough preparation. Also, the baking time is around 20 to 30 minutes at the same temperature. Below are the pictures of the Apple Strudels that i prepared using the store purchased pastry sheets

Apple Strudel Stories :

Autumn time… Apple harvest time. A very good friend of mine, here in Stuttgart, has a farm with several berries and apple trees in it. This summer I got an opportunity to visit her farm which, she and her husband have so beautifully maintained. A day in their farm happened to be one of my most cherished days in Stuttgart. The kids had a great time playing in the nature. As it was late summer, the apples were turning pink and red, but not yet ready to be harvested. We were served with freshly plucked yummy plums from their garden. Trust me, the plums I had eaten so far were not even close to being as tasty as the ones served by her.

In the early summer, she had also shared the cherries from the first harvest and they too were marvellous. Last week, when they harvested apples for the first time in their garden, she was sweet enough to give us a few. The apples were so delicious that they could any day take on the ones found in the super market racks for sure. Season of apples, in the land of strudels and a good friend showering her love in the form of apples… I had enough reasons to fold my sleeves and bake strudels. The strudels turned out to be so tasty that not even an iota was left in the plate.. They vanished in no time !!!