Apfelstrudel (Apple Strudel in Hand-Stretched Dough)

Variations

• Made with puff pastry: widespread — the Czech jablkový závin is usually this. Easier, and good, but a different result: stretched dough gives one thin, crisp skin, while puff gives risen layers. For laminated dough itself, pain au chocolat and croissant are where that technique lives.
• With filo: layer several shop-bought filo sheets, buttering between them. The closest substitute for stretching by hand, and no accident — strudel dough and filo are the same family.
• Topfenstrudel: filled with quark cheese instead of apple. The second most common filling in Vienna and far moister. Millirahmstrudel goes further and bakes it in milk and cream.
• Sauerkraut or potato strudel: savoury versions, and a reminder that strudel is the name of the dough rather than of a dessert.
• How it differs from apple pie: apple pie packs thick apple into a rich buttery crust; strudel rolls thinly sliced apple in a single thin sheet. The ratio of pastry to apple is inverted.
• Among the Austrian dishes here: if Sachertorte is the emblem of the Viennese café, Apfelstrudel is what sits beside it, and with schnitzel they make the Viennese trio.
• To serve: vanilla sauce, whipped cream, or vanilla ice cream. In Vienna it always comes with one of the three.

Tips

• The dough is the dish. One thinly stretched sheet is what makes it a strudel; made with puff pastry it keeps the name and becomes something else. That one step is also why it reads as difficult the first time.
• Use strong flour. More gluten pulls thinner. Plain or soft flour tears partway through (choosing flour, dough and gluten).
• Do not shorten the hour's rest. Straight after kneading the gluten is tight and the dough springs back. An hour makes it pullable; covering it with a warmed bowl speeds that up a little.
• Add the teaspoon of vinegar. The acid loosens the gluten bonds slightly, so the same pull gets it thinner. It does not affect the taste.
• Stretch with the backs of your hands. Fingertips and nails put holes in it. Slide your hands underneath and push outward from the centre. If it does tear, patch it with dough trimmed from the edge.
• Work on a cloth. Without one you can neither move the stretched sheet nor roll it. Rolling is done by lifting the cloth, not with your hands.
• Do not skip the fried crumbs. That layer absorbs the juice the apples release, and without it the thin base gets wet and never bakes. Exactly the job the duxelles does in beef Wellington.
• Slice the apples thin, and mix them at the last moment. Thicker than 3mm and they do not cook through in forty minutes; mixed with sugar and left standing, osmosis pulls the water out and the filling floods (what sugar does).
• Use sharp apples. Sweet varieties leave you tasting only sugar and cinnamon, and you want one that holds its shape when cooked — Bramley, Granny Smith, Boskoop.
• Butter it twice more during the bake. That is what makes the surface shatter like glass; brushed only once it bakes like dry paper (dairy and heat, browning).
• Serve it warm. Strudel peaks warm and goes limp cold. The next day, eight minutes in a 170°C oven brings most of it back (serving temperature, reviving leftovers).
• Saw, do not press, when slicing. Pressing shatters the thin skin and pushes the filling out. Use a serrated knife lightly.