Wednesday, May 27, 2009

Daring Bakers Challenge May 2009 - Apple Strudel


The May Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Linda of make life sweeter! and Courtney of Coco Cooks. They chose Apple Strudel from the recipe book Kaffeehaus: Exquisite Desserts from the Classic Cafés of Vienna, Budapest and Prague by Rick Rodgers.

To complete this challenge, I waited a few weeks on purpose. The reason was that last month I attended a series of pastry classes, so I waited for the teacher to cover the topic before trying.

The dough was indeed very easy to make: mix together 1 1/3 cups (200 g) unbleached flour, 1/8 teaspoon salt, 7 tablespoons (105 ml) water, plus more if needed,
2 tablespoons (30 ml) vegetable oil, plus additional for coating the dough,
1/2 teaspoon cider vinegar (instead of vinegar, I used white wine, a couple of tbsp), and work it very hard.
By "very hard" they mean "feel free to use violence!": taking the dough and throwing it on the table as it had provoked me was fun, especially for my kids, who were startled at first, looking at me as if I had gone nuts, and laughing their bellies out when they saw that mom was just playing (?) silly and nobody was getting hurt.
After a good 10 minutes of this workout, put the dough under a hot bowl and let it rest for half an hour.

In the meantime, find yourself a 6yo and a 4yo and when they ask you if they can play with the flour left on the table, tell them yes.
In a few minutes, you should get a similar result:




In the meantime(2), get together what you'll need for the filling.
My teacher was very passionate in saying that a strudel ought to be made only with rennet apples, but it's too hard to find them at this time of the year, so I went with plain golden apples, 2lbs/900gr, diced, and all the portrayed guest stars:



3-4 oz /100-120gr sugar with a spoonful of cinnamon, 1 oz/30gr pine nuts, 2 oz/50gr bread crumbs, 3oz/80-90gr butter, 2 oz/50 gr raisins, 1 oz/30gr crushed nuts.

Toast the pine nuts in some of the butter, think you can do something else in the meantime, burn them, throw them away, take another oz/30 gr pine nuts, toast them properly, set aside.
Toast the bread crumbs in another tablespoon of butter (no burning step needed), set aside.

The dough is really really easy to stretch thin, wine-drunk and beaten up as it is! Of course I didn't bother taking a picture of it (was I clumsy, this time around!!).
Spread all the fillings (what's left of butter should be melted) on all the surface of the less than paper-thin dough, keeping a sort of free frame





Now, only because you were so nice to read this so far, I want to be honest and tell you about the silly mistake I made.
The rolling should be done on the long side of the rectangle you're facing.
Don't ask me why, I started to roll the short side.
I realized my mistake at the first turn, but it was too late already.
So I went on, building the biggest, fattest strudel ever seen.
I left it in the oven 15 minutes more than the recipe required, to cook it evenly, and when it came out it was clear that to have a regular portion I would need to cut a slice in half, or the proportion and size of the serving would be ridicolous.




The taste was great! I can't wait for next autumn, when I'll be able to use rennet apples!

28 comments:

  1. Great pictures and I love the photos of the boys. This was one great challenge and it seems you liked it a lot. End results is a wonder even if it is fat and wide. Great job on this challenge. Cheers from Audax

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  2. This looks great! Looks like your kiddos were having quite the fun time. :-) Your dough is so nice and thin...unlike mine!

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  3. Wonderful! How fun to get the kids involved.

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  4. Love the addition of pine nuts, and the overall outcome is gorgeous! Great layers :)

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  5. Ha...cute are your kids, the strudel looks superb:)

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  6. I guess the boys had as much fun as you did with this challenge. :)
    Fat or healthy (i would call it), that strudel looks like it should - lovely.

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  7. Great job on your strudel and it looks amazing. The kids sure do look as if they had lots of fun. I can see flour everywhere!

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  8. Your strudel looks perfect! Great photos!

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  9. Beautiful, even with rolling the wrong side, don't worry my dough didn't look nearly as good as yours. Loved your little helpers!

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  10. Looks great! Love the story!

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  11. Great photos, wonderful job! Well done!

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  12. Great strudel! I nearly rolled mine the wrong way, and I've burned my fair share of pine nuts. Easy mistakes to make!

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  13. Oh yum! Love the addition of pine nuts, and the pic of the kids, too cute!

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  14. Your strudel looks wonderful! I'm not sure I wouldn't have managed to make the strudel dough with my boys around me :)

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  15. Loved your story =D. The strudel looks amazing!!

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  16. The kids sure look like they are having fun!
    A great job on the strudel, even rolled the other way!

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  17. Anna, once again you did such a great job with your post, the pictures and the strudel!!

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  18. Yummy! I love pine nuts!!! What a great idea to use them here!

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  19. Great post, very entertaining! And I love your pictures! Your strudel looks lovely, despite the rolling "mishap". I have to admit, I rolled on the short side as well, but I never got the dough to stretch to the required lengths, so it didn't make a big difference.

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  20. The kids looked like they were having a blast. LOL! Your pastry looks good too. Terrific post. :)

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  21. I love the shot of the kids on the floor, you are a wonderful mom to let them get messy!

    It must have been fat but it looks to yummy!

    Would love to hear about your pastry classes.

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  22. Lovely strudel, and such great photos of it, too! Makes me regret not going with that apple filling... It looks so delicious!

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  23. fantastico! posso dire sulle renette...botta di ...fortuna :))
    quel che succede con "posso toccare la farina?" è identico a quel che succede in casa mia.
    non ti conoscevo ma bello anche il tuo profilo è esattamente quel che farei se potessi ma essendo in due a navigar per questi mari mi tocca star ferma mio malgrado.
    (l'ultima volta il posto di lavoro era a washington dc non volevo nemmeno disfare i bagagli!)

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  24. very nice studel and wonderful photos, you did a great job in this challenge.

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  25. Oh yummo I can't wait to try this. I thought this would be something really hard so I never even considered making it myself. Thanks for the instructions. I think I'll leave the kid part out of it!!!! They are cute but, I just had 4 grandsons over & the dog & I are still finding food on the floor. :0

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  26. Hehe your kids are so cute! Your strudel looks fantastic. I've done brain-on-holiday things like that too, misreading recipe instructions and all that. Doesn't look like it harmed the end result one bit though!

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