Apple strudel, the Trentino recipe: paper-thin hand-stretched pastry filled with apples, raisins, pine nuts and cinnamon. Serves 8, in about 2 hours.
Introduction
Apple strudel is the dessert of Trentino and Alto Adige: a roll of paper-thin pastry, stretched by hand until it turns transparent, wrapped around a filling of apples, raisins, pine nuts, cinnamon and breadcrumbs toasted in butter. It is served warm, in slices, with a dusting of icing sugar, in homes as much as in alpine huts and mountain pastry shops, above all in autumn, when the apples of Val di Non and Val Venosta have just been picked.
The home recipe uses neither puff pastry nor shortcrust: it uses stretched dough, a simple mix of flour, warm water, oil and one egg, left to rest and then stretched over the backs of the hands and on a floured cloth until you can read a newspaper through it. It looks difficult and it is not: you need a strong flour, a well-rested dough and a little patience. In return you get a thin, crisp crust that leaves all the room to the apple, which is the whole point of the dessert.
For the dough we use Aurum type 1 soft wheat flour from Mulino Terrevive, stone-milled and with a strength (W 300-320) that makes the dough elastic and easy to stretch without tearing. In the glass, for warm strudel in the afternoon, we pour the Asolo Prosecco Superiore Extra Dry Cuvée by Cirotto; whoever serves it at the end of a meal, with cream or custard, will find in the Torcolato by Firmino Miotti a sweet wine that smells of baked apple and raisins.
History of Apple Strudel
The word Strudel means «whirlpool», «eddy» in German, and that is the shape you see when you cut the dessert: thin pastry rolled several times around the filling. The technique of paper-thin stretched dough comes from far away, from the layered pastries of Ottoman cooking that reached central Europe through Hungary, and at the Habsburg court it became one of the emblematic desserts of Viennese pastry-making. The oldest written strudel recipe, with a milk filling, is a Viennese manuscript from 1696.
Strudel reached Trentino and Alto Adige with the Austro-Hungarian Empire, which these valleys belonged to until 1918, and there it found the one thing it was missing: apples. The valleys of Trentino and Alto Adige are today the largest apple-growing area in Italy, and strudel became their home dessert, made with apples from the orchard and whatever was in the pantry. Every family has its own version, with more or less raisins, with pine nuts or with walnuts, but the rule is always the same: lots of apple and very little pastry.
Ingredients
For the stretched dough
- Aurum Type 1 Soft Wheat Flour250 g
- warm water110 ml
- egg1
- sunflower oil25 g
- salt1 pinch
For the filling
- Renette apples1 kg
- sugar80 g
- raisins50 g
- pine nuts40 g
- breadcrumbs80 g
- butter50 g
- ground cinnamon1 teaspoon
- grated lemon zest1 lemon
To finish
- melted butter50 g
- icing sugar10 g
Nutritional Values per Serving
Values calculated from the recipe's ingredients using the CREA food composition tables, and from the labels of our products where available. They are an estimate per serving, not a laboratory analysis.
Equipment Needed
- Large table, at least 80 × 100 cm
- Clean cotton cloth, as large as the table
- Large bowl
- Non-stick frying pan
- Pastry brush
- Oven tray or large baking sheet lined with baking paper
Tip: The cloth is the tool that makes the strudel. Well floured, it lets you stretch the dough without it sticking, and then roll up the dessert by lifting it: dough this thin could never be picked up by hand. An old smooth cotton tablecloth is fine; avoid towelling and fabrics with a raised weave, which tear the dough.
How to Make Apple Strudel — Trentino Recipe
The dough
Put the flour in a bowl with the salt, make a well and pour the egg, the oil and the warm water into the centre. Knead for at least ten minutes, slapping the dough on the table now and then, until it is smooth, glossy and elastic. Shape it into a ball, coat it with a thin film of oil, put it in a warm bowl, cover it and leave it to rest for half an hour at room temperature.
Chef's tip: The rest is not optional: it is the time in which the gluten relaxes and the dough becomes stretchy. Dough stretched without resting shrinks back and tears. Add the water a little at a time, because every flour absorbs a different amount: in the end the dough must be soft, not sticky.
The filling
Soak the raisins in warm water. In a frying pan melt the butter and toast the breadcrumbs over medium heat, stirring, until they are golden and smell of hazelnut; leave them to cool. Peel the apples, remove the cores and cut them into thin slices. Put them in a bowl with the sugar, the cinnamon, the lemon zest, the pine nuts and the squeezed raisins, and mix.
Chef's tip: Make the filling only when the dough is almost ready to stretch: apples with sugar release juice, and a filling left a long time in the bowl soaks the dough and makes it break. For the same reason the breadcrumbs are essential: they absorb the apple juice during baking.
Stretching
Heat the oven to 180 °C. Spread the cloth over the table and flour it well. Open out the dough with the rolling pin, then slide your hands underneath, fists closed, and gently pull it from the centre towards the edges, moving round the table, until it is paper-thin and transparent. Trim off the thicker edges and brush the dough with half the melted butter.
Chef's tip: Keep your hands in fists and work with the backs, not with your fingertips: fingernails pierce the dough. If a small tear opens it does not matter, it disappears in the rolling; a rectangle of about 60 by 80 centimetres is the right size for this quantity.
Rolling
Spread the toasted breadcrumbs over a third of the dough, on the side nearest to you, leaving the edges free, and the apple filling on top. Fold the side edges inwards and, lifting the cloth, let the strudel roll over on itself to the end. Slide it onto the baking sheet seam side down, brush it with the remaining butter and bake it for 40 minutes, until well browned. Let it cool slightly and serve it in slices, with icing sugar.
Chef's tip: Halfway through baking, brush the strudel again with the butter that has collected on the sheet: the crust comes out more golden and crisp. Do not cut it piping hot, because the filling is still runny and the slice falls apart: ten or fifteen minutes of rest are enough.
Wine to Pair with Apple Strudel
Strudel is a less sweet dessert than it looks. The hand-stretched pastry is thin and crisp, moistened only with melted butter; the filling is made of tart apples, raisins, pine nuts and cinnamon, with little sugar and the breadcrumbs toasted in butter that absorb the juice. So what reaches the palate is the fat of the butter, the acidity and aroma of baked apple, the warm note of cinnamon and the concentrated sweetness of the raisins. The wine is asked to cut through the butter of the pastry and to sit alongside the fruit without covering the cinnamon. The classic rule calls for a wine at least as sweet as the dessert, and it holds for strudel served with cream or vanilla custard; for strudel served warm in the afternoon, as they do in Trentino, far less sugar is needed, and a sparkling wine that carries the butter away is the lightest choice. We suggest two routes: an extra dry Prosecco for the afternoon and for plain strudel, or a passito from the Vicenza area for the end of a meal.
The Sparkling Wine We Recommend
Asolo Prosecco Superiore DOCG Extra Dry Cuvée — Cirotto — The **Asolo Prosecco Superiore Extra Dry Cuvée by Cirotto** is a pure Glera from the steepest hills of the Asolo area, between 200 and 250 metres, on calcareous marl and clay. The grapes are picked by hand and the wine undergoes a slow second fermentation in pressure tanks for forty days. From an extra dry you expect a sparkling wine slightly softer than a brut, and this one is: 16 grams of sugar per litre, a delicate, fruity sip, a mineral freshness in the background. On strudel it works in two ways. The fine perlage and the acidity cut through the butter of the pastry and the breadcrumbs with every sip, and the white fruit of the Glera, apple and pear, carries on that of the filling instead of contrasting it. That residual sugar, too, is enough to keep the wine from seeming sharp next to a not-very-sweet dessert. The limit has to be said: it is not a dessert wine, and faced with a strudel covered in icing sugar or served with vanilla custard it goes hollow and leaves only acidity. It is at its best with warm strudel, lightly dusted, in the afternoon or after lunch. Serve it at 8 °C, in a tulip glass.
Want to know more about the grape? our guide to Prosecco
A Dessert Wine as an Alternative
Torcolato Breganze DOC — Firmino Miotti — For strudel served with cream or custard, the second route is a true sweet wine. The **Torcolato by Firmino Miotti** is made only from Vespaiola grapes from the volcanic hills of Breganze, left to dry hanging from strings until after Christmas, and fermented for months until the yeast stops by itself, leaving the wine sweet. On the nose it has baked apple, honey, apricot, raisins and dried fruit: that is, almost literally, the filling of the strudel. Here the pairing works by similarity, and it succeeds because Vespaiola brings an acidity that holds up the sweetness of the drying and cleans away the butter of the pastry. The limit is the opposite of the Prosecco's: on plain strudel, lightly sugared, a passito this sweet and this long tends to overwhelm the apple and the cinnamon. Pour it in a small measure, at the end of the meal. Serve it at 10-12 °C, in a small glass.
Craft Beer as an Alternative
Reckless Bock Beer — Norah's Farm — Strudel is a dessert of the Alps, and a dark malt beer sits well beside it, as in a Stube. The **Reckless Bock by Norah's Farm** is a bottom-fermented strong beer in the Dunkel Bock style, deep copper in colour, with notes of caramel and dried fruit and a light bitterness that supports the malt. The caramel meets the raisins and the toasted breadcrumbs, the dried fruit meets the pine nuts, and the carbonation with its creamy head carries away the butter of the pastry. The limit: the finish is soft and a little sweet, so it refreshes less than a sparkling wine, and the 7% vol makes itself felt on an afternoon dessert. Serve it at 8-10 °C.
Want to know more about the style? dark beers and doppelbocks
Variations
- With shortcrust pastry: in many Trentino homes a simpler strudel is made with shortcrust pastry, rolled into a rectangle and wrapped around the filling. It is easier and keeps better, but the crust is thicker and crumblier and the dessert is richer in butter.
- With rum: the raisins can be soaked in two tablespoons of rum instead of water. It is the custom of many Alto Adige pastry shops, and it gives the filling a warmer, more festive aroma.
- With walnuts: instead of pine nuts you can use coarsely chopped walnuts, or half and half. The flavour is more rustic and slightly bitter, and it goes well with sweeter apples.
Frequently Asked Questions
Which apples should I use for strudel?
Tart, firm apples, which stay in pieces in the oven and do not turn into purée. Renette is the classic choice in Trentino; Granny Smith or a tart variety from Trentino or Alto Adige also work. Very sweet, mealy apples make the filling watery and cloying.
Can I use shop-bought puff pastry?
Yes, and many people do: the result is good, but it is a different dessert. Puff pastry is fattier, puffs up in the oven and covers the apple, while stretched dough stays thin and crisp. With puff pastry, bake at 200 °C for about 35 minutes.
How do I store strudel?
It keeps for two days at room temperature, covered with a cloth, and up to four in the fridge. Before serving, it is best to warm it for a few minutes in the oven at 150 °C: the pastry turns crisp again, whereas in the microwave it goes soft.
Can strudel be frozen?
Yes, preferably once baked. Let it cool completely, wrap it in cling film and freeze it whole or in slices. Thaw it in the fridge and warm it in the oven at 160 °C for about ten minutes.
What is strudel served with?
In Trentino it is served warm, with just icing sugar, or with a spoonful of whipped cream. In pastry shops you also find it with vanilla custard or a scoop of custard ice cream.
