Apple Strudel ( Wiener Apfelstrudel)

Dough:

2 cups flour
2 tbsp. cooking oil
1 tbsp. vinegar (white)
pinch of salt
2/3 cup warm water

Put flour on pastry board and make a well add oil, vinegar and salt. Combine ingredients mixing from the center with a fork adding enough water to make a stiff dough. Work dough until smooth and shiny and blistered looking. (The trick in strudel is the working of the dough. The more you work it the better it will stretch.)

Shape dough into a small loaf and brush lightly with oil, cover with a thick cloth and let rest in a warm place for an hour.

Place a linen table cloth over a large table or work space and sprinkle with flour.

Roll dough thinly on the cloth and pull the dough to stretch it. Stretch dough by putting it over your hands and gently pulling in all directions.

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

Apple filling:

3 lbs. of cooking apples ( I use Granny Smith)
1 cup blonde raisins
½ cup ground nuts ( I like pecans or hazel nuts)
¾ cup sugar
1 package of Oetker vanilla sugar
pinch of cinnamon
pinch of ground clove or nutmeg, (I use nutmeg)
¼ cup butter
¾ cup fine bread crumbs
¾ cup butter
for brushing

Peel, core and slice apples thinly. In a bowl add raisins, apples, nuts, sugar, vanilla sugar and spices well.

In a sauce pan melt ¼ cup butter and add bread crumbs and cook until golden. Melt another ¼ of butter and brush ¾ of it over the dough. Sprinkle bread crumbs over 2/3 of the dough. Cover crumbs with apple mixture. Roll up tightly starting at the filling end and let table cloth help you roll up to the end. Place on ungreased baking sheet and brush with remaining butter.

Bake on middle rack at 375 degrees for about 40 min. until crisp and golden, brushing occasionally with butter during baking. Cool. Sift with good helping of 10X sugar and serve.

Apple Strudel the Easy Way

Use One Pepperidge Farm Puff Pastry sheet and brush with melted butter on one side.

I use about 3 Granny Smith apples cored, peeled and sliced thin in about ½ cup sugar or less and ½ tsp. cinnamon, 1/8 tsp. of nut meg, and ¼ cup finely chopped hazel nuts or pecans, and ¼ cup blonde raisins and 1/4 cup water in a sauce pan to cook until almost tender. Remove from heat and let cool.

Add filling to one end of the dough and roll up as tight as possible. With water at the end to seal the dough and tucking in the ends at the sides.

Bake at 375 degrees until crisp and golden and brush with butter while baking a few times. I like sprinkling it with course sugar instead of 10X.

This is my quickie version of an old Viennese favorite!

ENJOY!!