South fashoned Strudel

Today we bring you a typical dessert from Central Europe, very popular in Germany, Austria, Switzerland and Italy: the Strudel. The word Strudel in german language means "vortex", because of its peculiar shape.
There are many versions of this delicious traditional sweet dish, but maybe the most famous is the one made with apples, the "apfelstrudel", done with the excellent fruit that grows in the eastern part of the alps: the apple Golden Delicious (have you ever heard of Marlene apples from Italian Südtirol?). The Turks exported this dish to Hungary, that at the time was under their domination. In Hugary still nowadays we find another "cousin" of the Strudel, called Rétes. It become a "central European" dessert after the success of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and it wasn't until the XIX century that it started being called "strudel". In Italy we find it in the zones that once were under the domination of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and of course in the German speaking area like Südtirol-Alto Adige. In the nearby area of Trentino it has been somewhat "italianized" using the pasta frolla dough  (the one used to make the crostata) instead of the phyllo dough. 
From region to region, with the pass of the time, the recipe has evolved and adapted to the local taste, but we guarantee you that each one of these recipes is literally to die for!

We wanted to give our twist to the original recipe, bringing it to the warmth of the South, using the Marsala wine (typical of Sicily) and changing the usual currants and the cinnamon for something that fit beter the summertime, like the papaya and pineapple. We apologize with the lover of the original strudel recipe! ;)

Ingredients:

For the dough:

• 200 g. of flour (half normal and half wheat flour)
• 3 spoonful of olive oil
• 1/2 spoonful of salt
• 1 spoonful of sugar
• 1 glass of water

For the filling:

• 3 apples type Golden Delicious
• 3 spoonful of dried fruits to taste (in my case papaya and pineapple)
• 1 cup of Marsala wine
• 100 g. of sugar
• 75 g. of peeled walnut
• 50 g. of breadcrumbs
• 1 egg to paint the surface

Preparation:

1- First of all, put the dried fruit into our cup of Marsala wine. If you can't find it, you can use another kind of similar sweet wine like a Brandy.

For the dough, mix the flour with the olive oil, the salt, a spoonful of sugar and warm water (we'll use enough water to obtain a non sticking dough, that is more or less a glass). We'll work well the dough of our strudel and we'll extend it with the help of a rolling pin, we want it to be very thin. We put the thin dough into a kitchen towel (covered with flour, otherwise the dough will stick onto it) and we keep on extending it. The towel will help us folding the dough once filled.

 

2- In a pan with half a spoon of olive oil, we will fry the breadcrumbs mixed with some sugar, obtaining in this way a sort of sand. We will sprinkle half of this "sand" above our dough.

3- peel and cut into thin slices our apples, we take out of the Marsala wine the dried fruit and we sqeeze them a little bit, then we cut them along with the walnuts. We put it all abouve our dough and we put at the top of the filling the rest of the breadcrumbs and sugar. We wrap the dough with the help of the kitchen towel and we close the extremities, in order not to let the filling go out. We paint the surface with beated egg and we cook it in a preheated oven at 175º C during some 45 minutes...and there you are your strudel!

It is perfect to eat it when warm and along with some vanilla ice cream...nom nom!

With the quantities decribed above we'd cooked two small strudel.

Greetings!

AnGie