[Isa]

A friend and I tackled strudel today and the results were very disappointed. We used the recipe in Rick Rodger’s Kaffehaus. The dough came together easily and the stretching went rather well. We made an apple filling, rolled the dough and baked it.

The dough never cooked. It had a nice outside crust, the filling was lovely but most of the dough stayed a bit raw and a prolonged stay in the oven did not change anything. We can’t understand what happened or why. Here is the recipe:


1 1/3 cups all purpose unbleached flour
1/8 teaspoon salt
7 tablespoons water
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
1/2 teaspoon cider vinegar


Anneke I seem to remember you made strudel a while back, any thoughts on this dough recipe?

[kthull]

Isa:

I've never made it before, but I watched Emeril make a fairly huge classic Apfelstrudel and here's his dough recipe, which has butter and no vinegar.

3 cups bread flour
1 egg
1/4 cup soft, unsalted butter
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup cold water
Vegetable oil (for the bowl the dough will rest in)

[Pongi]

Isa,
independently from the dough recipe you used, your problem may be due to other two reasons:

1)You didn't roll the dough thin enough. The dough sheet must be almost transparent - I usually roll it on a sheet of parchment paper and use it as a help to roll up the strudel.

2)The apples you used were too watery, and moistened the dough. Use a "dry" apple (we generally use the "Renette" but I don't know the English name for this apple). I generally slice my apples in advance, add sugar and cinnamon, keep them aside for 20-30 mins, discard the excess of liquid and fill the strudel.

Pongi

[danno]

hi ISA here are a few thigs to think about, when making strudel. sounds like you had a good developed dough since you were able to get the dough stretched out well. when i make it i like to get it thin enough to be almost transparent. at that poing the dough needs to dry a little otherwise if the surface of the dough is still moist, when it gets rolled up the dough lyers will bond back together, thus loosing your layers, and becomming one peice of dough. so it is important to keep in mind when stretching the dough to keepevenly stretched so it dryes evenly. it is also important to keep in mind not to let it dry to much otherwise to strudle will explode from the expansion of the filling. so after stretching let the dough dry but not som much it should to be able to expand. one other thing about apples if you think they may high in moisture. you can put them in sugar for a few hours after cutting. the sugar will draw out the moisture of the apples.
good luck
danno

[Anneke]

Isa,

It's been a while since I'v emade it. Let me PM you my recipe.

[Anneke]

A few technical point which helped me when making my albeit unconventional strudel:

First, I butter the entire surface of the stretched out dough. It keeps moisture from transfering. The dough was rolled out thin, to transparency, but we never bothered drying it out. It was never necessary.

Second, We would sautee the apples before hand to get them caramelized (a bit) and flavoured with whatever flavour you want to give them.

We would line the bottom with sponge cake and use crumbs sprinkled over the entire surface.

Moisture was never a problem with the above safeguards..

[Isa]

I still don't understand what went wrong. We stretched the dough until we could see the tablecloth clearly through the dough and brushed it with melted butter and the bread crumbs. To the fruits we added a bit of sugar and spices.


Thanks for all the tips and your recipe Anneke. Erin and I will hold a strudel rematch soon.

[miahoyhoy]

What kind of fruits did you use and how, exactly, did you prepare them? Was it still warm when you rolled it? If so that's no buenno.


Perhaps the oven temp was too low, allowing the moisture from the butter to sogify (that's a technical term ) the dough before it could crisp and cook properly.

lates,
Jon

[Isa]

The fruits were at room temperature and the strudel was baked in a 400°F oven.

[Pongi]

Isa:
If I can convert temps correctly (not sure about that...) I bake my strudel at a lower temp, about 350° F (I mean 180° C) for 1 hour.

I subscribe almost everything has been posted above! But, I have a doubt. What do you mean with "raw"? Apart from mine, I ate tons of Apfelstrudels in my life (As you may know, I have a holiday home in Sudtirol) and their dough was ALWAYS slightly raw inside, so I argue it isn't meant to cook completely.

Are you sure your strudel wasn't good as it was?

Pongi

[Isa]

It was very doughy in an unappealing way. Even the top layers were not cooked and the dough was pretty much tasteless. It really wasn't good.

Would you mind sharing your recipe Pongi?


We're hoping to have round II for tomorrow with a different recipe.

[Pongi]

Isa,
basically you can make the Apfelstrudel dough in three different ways:

1)An egg-free dough that we italians call "pasta matta" - about the same we use for vegetable pies. It is made of wheat flour, a limited amount of fat (butter or vegetable oil), a pinch of salt and water enough to get a smooth and elastic dough. This is the dough formerly used to make Apfelstrudel.

2)An egg containing, shortcrust pastry-like dough. Although reported in many recipes, personally I can't recommend it as, in my experience, it's too rich to be rolled up thin enough without breaking.

3)A puff pastry dough. Although not traditional, it works very well, and many local pastry shops use it now to make Apfelstrudel. I must admit that, when I have few time or feel particularly lazy, I buy a roll of fresh, already made puff pastry dough and make my best Apfelstrudel , otherwise this is my recipe "by scratch":

Ingredients:

For the dough:
250 grams white wheat flour
50 grams butter
1 pinch of salt
fresh water enough to get a good dough (suppose 4-5 tbsp)

For the filling:
-1 kg "Renette" apples
-100 grams sugar
-50 grams raisins, soaked in water and squeezed
-40 grams pine nuts
-1-2 tsp cinnamon
-grated rind of 1 lemon
-100-120 grams of melted butter
-100 grams breadcrumbs

Make the dough, knead it until very elastic and keep it aside in a warm place for 30-40 mins.
Cut the apples in thin slices, put them in a bowl with the sugar, give them a mix and keep aside for 30 mins, then discard the excess of liquid. Add the raisins, pine nuts, cinnamon, lemon rind and mix.
Put the dough on a large sheet of parchment paper (hope the word is correct, I mean the paper you can use for baking) and roll it to a rectangular shape, almost transparent as you already know. Brush with half of the melted butter and sprinkle with breadcrumbs, then cover the two thirds of the dough with the filling.
Roll up the strudel, helping yourself with the paper, and carefully seal it. Brush the surface with the remaining melted butter.
Transfer the strudel, with the parchment paper, on a plate and bake at 350° C for 1 hour. Cool it down, then remove from the paper and sprinkle with icing sugar.

Good luck!

Pongi

[Isa]

We're getting a strudel obsession. Yesterday we made our third strudel, we choose to make a pear & vanilla strudel. I It came out great, very nice flavour.

This time, the dough was a bit harder to streched. We used the same recipe and weighted the ingredients. Must have been the weather. It was warmer and drier yesterday. Anyway it wasn't anything major, just a few inches short of our 30x45 previos strech.


We were more interested by the taste of the dough, or the lack of. Sure it's a nice paper thin though but it's pretty tasteless. Adding a bit more salt and a bit of confectionner sugar should solve that problem. We're aiming for a dough tasting somewhat like a pate sucree. But adding sugar will change the concistency of the dough so how should we compensate? Adding a bit more water or butter? Or removing a bit of the flour?


Kyle you are so right about hobby and illness, the line is really thin...