Culinary Travel: Apple Strudel

From Prague to Vienna to Budapest – where we experienced the ultimate tasting at Reteshaz Strudel House on the Pest side of the city

No Central European vacation is complete without an apple strudel tasting.

From Prague to Vienna to Budapest – where we experienced the ultimate tasting at Reteshaz Strudel House on the Pest side of the city courtesy of Insight Vacations – the sweet treat is a tradition that you can now make at home. Watch the video to watch a master strudel maker in action, and then take this recipe below, and get cooking! www.insightvacations.com

Related: Recipe for Success: Hungarian Mushroom Soup

Insight’s Signature Apfelstrudel

Ingredients

Strudel dough or puff pastry

Approx. 1.5 kg apples

80 – 100 g sugar, as required

4 tbsp raisins

Rum

Lemon Juice

Cinnamon

Powdered cloves

Icing sugar for dusting

Plenty of melted butter or possibly 1 egg for coating

For the nutty breadcrumbs

100 g breadcrumbs

3 tbsp butter

3 tbsp grated hazelnuts

How To Make It:

1. Prepare the dough yourself, or have the shop-bought dough to hand. Steep the raisins in the rum and leave to soak.

2. To prepare the nutty breadcrumbs, heat the butter in a pan until it bubbles up. Add the breadcrumbs and fry slowly over a moderate heat until golden brown. Towards the end, stir in the grated nuts, cook through quickly and remove from the heat.

3. Peel the apples, cut into slices and quickly sprinkle with lemon juice. Then, depending on the acidity of the apples, add a suitable amount of sugar and powdered cloves, and mix in a generous pinch of cinnamon. Pre-heat the oven to 180 °C and grease a suitable baking tin with butter.

4. Ideally, prepare the strudel dough in such a way that the strudel ends up laid onto a sheet of baking paper. Distribute the nutty breadcrumbs over around half of the dough. Scatter the apples and raisins over it. Coat the remaining surface of the dough generously with melted butter, fold in the edges at the sides and roll up the strudel. Seal the ends well and lift the strudel into the baking tin using the baking paper (if using puff pastry, apply the apple filling in the centre, fold up the sides and edges towards the middle and press the sealing edges together firmly).

5. Depending on the dough, coat with melted butter (for strudel dough) or egg (puff pastry) and bake for 40 – 50 minutes until golden brown (bake puff pastry for slightly less time). Remove the finished strudel, leave to cool down and sprinkle with icing sugar.

Serve cool or cold.

Baking Time: 40 – 50 minutes (slightly less for puff pastry).

 

Love taking video? Zoomer’s resident traveller, Vivian Vassos, shot this on Canon’s SL1, the world’s smallest DSLR, which is 25 per cent smaller and 29 per cent lighter than the average DSLR. EOS Rebel, $629.99 with an 18-55 mm lens and 3-inch touchscreen, Canon