Daring Bakers - May - Apple Streudel

Ah Austria! Scenic land of German speakers, Salzburg (I am a Sound of Music fan!) and home of Mozart. It is also the heartland of some wonderful desserts - thinks Sacher torte and streudel for instance. And it is to the streudels of Vienna that we journey with the Daring Bakers this month.

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.

The challenge was to make your own streudel dough and fill it with whatever takes your fancy. I have made streudel dough before in a pastry class, but this was my first time flying solo.

There have been some wonderfully creative Daring Bakers who created an array of savoury and sweet fillings, but I played it simple and used the apple filling for which our hosts gave us the recipe. (My initial choice was cherry cheese, but I am kind of over rich things at the moment, and the simplicity of the apple filling struck my fancy.)

Here is my rested dough before stretching:


and this is the stretched dough with the holy bits cut off the edges (no, not sacred, just full of holes):

Here is the wonderful apple filling pre-baking (containing apple slices, raisins, rum and almonds) lying on the bread-crumb strewn dough:

After some careful rolling (using the floured tablecloth as an aid) and shaping, I ended up with this horse-shoe shaped streudel pre-baking (with the scariest moment being lifting the delicate but heavy streudel from the table onto the baking tray):

and finally, here is the finished product in all its golden brown, crispy glory:

The streudel baked out quite a lot of juices from the filling, which accounts for all the syrup you can see surrounding the streudel. My dough is orange in colour because I used a red palm-canola oil blend. I also chose to sprinkle the top of the streudel with extra sugar pre-baking to give it a nice crunchy top.

In my opinion, this streudel tasted best straight out of the oven, sliced and served with vanilla icecream. It smelt wonderful and tasted heavenly. The simplicity of the apple filling really won me over, and I would make the filling again for pies and tarts (as well as streudels!). It is not perhaps the handsomest of desserts, but it is very tasty.

Thank you to Linda and Courtney for being our hosts this month. You will be able to find the recipe for the streudel dough and the apple filling at their sites. To check out all the other amazing streudels from my fellow Daring Bakers, visit the Daring Bakers blogroll.