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The Bakery 100 · make it at home

Viennese apple strudel

2 hr 30 min, 1 hr hands-on · 1 strudel, 8 slices

Dough stretched so thin you can read through it, rolled around apples, raisins and buttery breadcrumbs.

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The real one

You need

• Dough: 250 g bread flour (2 cups)
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 130 ml lukewarm water (1/2 cup + 1 tbsp)
• 2 tbsp neutral oil, plus more for coating
• 1 tsp lemon juice or vinegar
• Filling: 1 kg tart apples (about 6), peeled, cored and thinly sliced
• 80 g sugar (1/3 cup + 1 tbsp)
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• Zest and juice of 1/2 lemon
• 60 g raisins (1/3 cup), soaked in 2 tbsp rum
• 80 g fresh breadcrumbs (1 cup), toasted golden in 60 g butter
• 100 g melted butter (7 tbsp), for brushing
• Powdered sugar and whipped cream, to serve

How to make it

1. Dough (15 min plus 1 hr): Mix flour, salt, water, oil and lemon juice and knead 10 minutes, slapping it on the counter, until silky and elastic. Coat with oil, cover and rest 1 hour at warm room temperature. The rest is what lets it stretch.
2. Filling (10 min): Toss the apples with sugar, cinnamon, lemon zest and juice and the drained raisins.
3. Stretch (15 min): Cover a table with a floured cloth. Roll the dough out as far as it goes, then slide your floured fists (knuckles up) under it and gently stretch it from the center outward, walking around the table, until it's paper-thin and about 60 x 90 cm. Cut off the thick edge.
4. Fill and roll (10 min): Brush the dough with melted butter. Scatter the buttered crumbs over a third of it along a short end, then the apples. Fold the sides in, then lift the cloth to roll the strudel up.
5. Bake (40 min): Slide onto a lined tray seam-down, curving it if needed. Brush with butter. Bake at 190C (375F) for 40 minutes, brushing with butter twice, until golden and crisp.
6. Serve: Cool 15 minutes, dust with powdered sugar, and slice with a serrated knife. Serve warm with whipped cream.

Tips

• A tear here and there is fine; they're hidden in the roll.
• Shortcut: use 6 sheets of filo, buttered and stacked.

Chef Amazing's own home version of apple strudel, in our words; not any bakery's recipe.