Nothing beats the combination of flaky pastry and spicy apple filling, but this Austrian favourite is famous world-wide for good reason. Simple ingredients deliver bold flavours, with each bite whisking you further along the glorious Danube.
Authentic Viennese Apple Strudel
Ingredients for the crust:
- 6 sheets of filo pastry
- 750g Bramley apples
- 1.5 tsps ground cinnamon
- Zest and juice of 1 lemon
- 100g golden caster sugar
- 75g raisins
- 95g unsalted butter
- 40g white breadcrumbs
- 1 tbsp icing sugar for dusting
Method:
- Pre-heat your oven to 190C (170C for fan ovens) or gas mark 5. Line a rectangular baking tray with baking parchment.
- Peel, core, quarter, and slice your apples. Mix in a bowl with the lemon zest, cinnamon, raisins, and sugar. In a small pan, melt 1/3 of the butter and fry the breadcrumbs until golden. Add these to the apple mixture.
- Melt the remaining butter in a larger pan. On a dry, clean tea towel, lay one sheet of filo pastry and brush with the melted butter. Repeat the process until you've used all the pastry sheets. Leave some butter for later.
- Lay the apple mixture along the length of the pastry sheets, leaving approx. a 2-3cm gap around the edge. Using the tea towel to help you, roll the pastry lengthways to enclose the filling. Tuck in the ends and lay seam-side down on the lined baking tray. Brush the entire strudel with the remaining butter and bake for 40-45 minutes until golden-brown.
- Leave to cool then dust with icing sugar before serving with cream, ice cream or custard.
Guten Appetit!
