This week’s challenge was Apfelstrudel (Apple Strudel). I wussed out this week and didn’t knead the dough by hand. I knew I had to spend an hour peeling apples, so I took a short cut here.
I had to sprinkle a little more flour into the machine, and when I cut it directly after removing it from the machine, I wasn’t certain there were “wavy lines” in the dough. I kneaded it for a minute or two by hand and the lines became pretty clear. I stuck the dough in an oiled bowl, covered with a dish towel, in the oven with the light on. I don’t remember who told me to do that, but someone said that was the trick to good dough, it’s kept warm, and you don’t have to worry about drafts.
I love Braeburn apples, so I never really look at what other brands are on offer. I’d never heard of Boskoop, so I thought I’d probably end up using Granny Smith, but no, there was a nice big bin of Boskoop right there in the store. I chopped all the apples before adding the lemon juice, so they browned a little bit. It didn’t really affect anything, since they get cooked anyway, but if you want perfect apples, you’ll need to have the lemon squeezed before chopping the apples so you can sprinkle them with juice as you cut them.
The dough didn’t really rise. I would have been a little surprised if it had, since there’s no leavening agent. I didn’t have any problem rolling it out to the size of a dish towel.
I think maybe a little bit less than 200 g of sour creme could work. It said a thin layer, but I still had quite a bit of sour creme after doing that. I went ahead and added it all, but I wouldn’t call what I got a thin layer.
When folding the sides over the filling, I ended up having to redo it and stretch them a bit so I could fold them even more than shown in the picture below, as some of the filling started to spill out the first time I tried to roll it up.
I had buttered the pan and found it a little tricky to get the strudel into the pan without wiping up a good deal of the butter with the towel. I ended up folding the strudel in the towel, then folding back the top of the towel so the top of the strudel was uncovered, then I carefully flipped it over into the pan.
I spread on the melted butter (I used the same brush that I did the sour creme with, so that explains the white stuff in the photo, this might have been a brilliant shortcut, cause the outer crust was delicious). I think I might have put it in much too large of a pan, I had to add probably double the milk in order to allow me to baste the strudel during the cooking. I’m not sure, but maybe it would be better to split the dough and filling in half, making two strudels, that you could then stick in a 9×13″ pan. I’ll have to try that the next time I do this recipe. I misunderstood the instructions, check out Stephanie’s post below for the proper way to form and place the strudel in the pan (mine still turned out fine though, so not a catastrophic mistake on my part, but still…)
The vanilla sauce turned a little bit chunky (maybe coarse is a better word) as it cooled. It might not have mattered, but I put it through a sieve, then used a stick blender on it just to give it a nice smooth consistency.
We don’t have anything to serve sauce or gravy in (note to self: should buy a small pitcher or something), so I stuck the vanilla sauce in our french press. The strudel easily served 8. We had our neighbors over and they said that the strudel and sauce came out exactly right. Rainer was very impressed that I managed this, saying these recipes have been pretty complicated so far, but have been turning out well.
The outer crust was seriously delicious. It almost tasted like there was condensed milk on it. I’m not sure if that’s how it’s supposed to come out or if it was because I didn’t wash the sour cream off the brush before using it to spread melted butter on the strudel. Rainer and the neighbors raved about the vanilla sauce. I thought it tasted a little like runny vanilla pudding. Maybe I’m just not a vanilla sauce kind of person. It tasted fine, but I think I like my strudel better with vanilla ice cream.
Rainer said this was the best thing we’ve made so far. It’s a lot of work, but would be good for a party or special occasion.
Other participants:
- Stephanie at A Greenville Life – she shows the proper way to form and put the strudel in the baking pan
- Emily at American Wolpertinger in Bayern
- Yelli at 50% of my DNA
- Amber at Genausländers
Next challenge!
After taking a look at the recipe for Sauerbraten, I decided you all may need more than a week to prepare, so for next week’s challenge I picked an easy, low calorie soup from the Schleswig-Holstein and Hamburg section of the book, Wurzelsuppe (Root soup). The soup is made with carrots, cellery root and leeks. If you want to participate, make it sometime this week and post about it on Monday.
The following week will be Rheinischer Sauerbraten (Rhineland Sauerbraten) with Schneeballchen (Small potato dumplings). Yep, that’s right, two recipes. Make them sometime in the next two weeks and post about them on Monday, March 23. Rainer’s mom used to make this combo when he was a kid (leave the butter and bread crumbs off the dumplings though when serving with the Sauerbraten, you do that if they’re for a small meal on their own). He also suggests serving Apfelkompott (apple compote/sauce) as a side. Looking further ahead, we might go for something light the week after the Sauerbraten, then we’ll be tackling Kalbshaxn!
Want to pick a future recipe? Go through the list and pick out recipes you want to do. I’ve got about three-quarters of the recipe names translated to English, so there’s plenty of recipes there for you guys to choose from. Nominate something!
{ 17 comments… read them below or add one }
Wow. Looks great, Christina. You’ve inspired me to tackle apfelstrudel. I’ve always had visions of having to roll out the dough to the size of a dining table. I’m glad to see that’s not necessary!
That looks tasty!
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I’ve been waiting for you to get to the simpler stuff from our neck of the woods. How about a Pharisäer before the weather gets too warm?
Seriously, I’ll probably have Christopher try making the Würzelsuppe. He has a cooking AG at school and this should be right up his alley.
I see you also have Heidschnuckenbraten on the list. We live in the Nordheide, and this is where Heidschnucken are raised. I’ve never tried cooking one, though… and as far as I know there are only a couple butcher shops in the area that sell the meat. I don’t know if they export to far-away lands like Bayern.
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@lynn: I always thought that too, but I think it wasn’t that bad to make.
@paul: It was!
@scott: I look forward to hearing about Christopher’s experience cooking next week! There’s a few things that we will probably have trouble making. The Heidschnuckenkeule recipe says you can substitute lamb. Rainer says he doesn’t think we’ll be able to make Blaue Forelle (we’d have to catch the trout ourselves and cook it immediately since it loses the blue color within an hour of being caught), and pheasant may be difficult to come by too. And I think the Pharisäer sounds good for after the Sauerbraten then, although end of March may be getting a little warm for it. Well, there’s still cool evenings even if the day is warm.
WOW! That looks great!
I really wanted to do this on Sunday, but didn’t find the time… and I know it will take a lot of time. Maybe sometime this week or next weekend.
Apfelstrudel has been conquered! I followed the advice of the recipe and put the strudel in a horseshoe U shape in the pan to bake.
http://agreenvillelife.blogspot.com/2009/03/apfelstrudel-apple-strudel.html
Will be making the soup and sauerbraten both this week since DH has several business trips coming up. the soup sounds good – esp. after the heaviness of the apfelstrudel! (but a good kind of heaviness!)
Stephanies last blog post..Apfelstrudel (Apple Strudel)
Looks delicious, but what do I see there? Raisins? Can’t have them in my Apfelstrudel or in anything that is supposed to end up in my belly and enter via my mouth.
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The finished product looks gorgeous!
Kind of like how they move a patient in the hospital from the gurney to the operating table (without the flipping, naturally)?
BTW, the sauce in the French press looks pretty. I would never have thought of that.
*off to clean French press*
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@snooker: If you post about it, don’t forget to let us know! Good luck!
@stephanie: I’m such an idiot that I didn’t understand that horseshoe instruction. I had no idea what they were talking about. I’m glad you can provide the proper instruction to the readers!
@phil: Does that mean that you personally don’t like raisins or that Austrian Apfelstrudel shouldn’t have raisins in it? Just curious
@sarah: Exactly! And the french press was the smallest container we had that was made for pouring. I need to make a trip to Ikea.
Hey Christina,
looks great! Seems like you had some of the same foibles that I did. Sure am jealous of your mixer…that’s way more important than a gravy boat!!
here’s my version:
http://americanwolpertinger.blogspot.com/2009/03/apple-strudel-real-german-cuisine.html
Emilys last blog post..Apple Strudel – Real German Cuisine Challenge -
My post is up! I am really impressed you made the vanilla sauce. I am eager to try that next time. Awesome recipe!
Yellis last blog post..Real German Cuisine Challenge: Apfelstrudel
It looks delicious Christina!! But I’m trying to loose weight, and making an 8 portions Apple Strudel, however tempting would not help me much!! I was tempted though!!
Not so much with next week’s challenge, I hate raisins and/or dried fruits with meat.
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@emily: That’s very true!
@yelli: It’s not that hard, and I had a really excellent spare vanilla bean lying around from making my own vanilla extract.
@jientje: I can understand that. That’s why I made sure to invite the family from next door over to eat it with us. I wanted no leftovers! And next week’s is root soup, the week after is roast with raisins (I think you could leave the raisins out if you wanted to).
I’m a bit late to the game, but I’ve been reading about all these German recipes and finally got a couple of them made. You can see my Apfelstrudel here. Your German Cuisine Challenge is a great project. Thanks!
http://genauslander.wordpress.com/2009/03/26/apfelstrudel-an-undertaking/
Hi Amber, great to have you along with us! I added your post to the participants list.
Okay, now I found THIS post and you mentioned in it something about the flour not rising because of no leavening agent, so that answered my question. Wonderful!