Guys, I was fortunate enough to participate in a strudel online class by the Austrian Astrid Lamarche. I was not paid to say this, I really enjoyed that strudel class. If you want to check Astrid’s Instagram, you will be amazed as to how big she manages to stretch out strudel dough. So I got super ambitious and swore to myself, I want to get as good as she is. If she manages to only use 200 grams of flour (a typical amount for strudel) to stretch the dough over her entire dining table, I want to try that, too! And it worked, of course there still is room for improvement, but I was so happy that this is a super classic and traditional Austrian strudel. So below I am sharing the recipe with you guys.
Viennese apple strudel, would you like a piece? Yes, we are going to make this beauty from scratch, strudel dough is actually not as hard as you may think. Just be sure you have enough time at hand when you make the dough because it needs a pretty long resting period. That was actually what I tried to ignore this time and that’s why my first dough had a lot of holes and couldn’t be strechted properly. So feel free to start the dough the day beforehand. Resting it more than a few hours, e.g. overnight is no problem at all, you just give the gluten more time to develop. And then you will be rewarded with a delicious dessert with lots of apple flavor!
When I showed you in my stories on Instagram how I made this strudel, so many of you asked for the recipe and how I did it, so this is it! A classic apple strudel with some streusel or crumbs. I know that strudel dough can be intimidating, it was also for me, but like with everything, practice makes perfect. My first strudel looked very different, it had a lot of thick parts and I had so many wholes in it. But one of the good things of strudel is that the main event is the filling anyway, so even if your dough is not perfect, it does not matter that much because the dough is so thin and only is there to hold together the fruit filling or whatever you are going with.
Today I am introducing apple cream strudel from Munich. This strudel is a classic from grandma’s time. I am happy that Anna from the German blog Teigliebe agreed to bake together a classic recipe from grandma’s time. We baked together already once, this was during the giveaway from Marc and Andrea, Anna made a super beautiful raspberry rhubarb pie and I made a strawberry pie with roses. I was happy when Anna agreed to bake again with me. I picked the topic “Classic Recipes from Grandma’s Time” due to the fact that my grandma S. passed away recently. At the funeral it was mentioned several times that she was a brilliant baker and cook. Her home was known as a “hotel” even though she did not run any as her food had the standard of a hotel and she loved to host a lot of get-togethers. I distinctly remember her birthdays as the table would be laden down with the weight of oh so many homemade cakes and pies.
Today I am presenting the German answer to American pies: strudel! Strudel is a very elastic dough, which is rolled up to a log and contains lots and lots of fruit filling. When I served this plum strudel with cinnamon streusel to my guests, I could barely manage to see any of it as it was gone so quickly. Just as pies, this strudel is a “healthier” version of a cake as the ratio of unsweetend dough to lots of fruit filling simply is genious. If you are into fruity cakes and like pies, you will definitely also enjoy strudel, give this beauty a try.