Simple Apfelstrudel Recipe

I had my first taste of Apfelstrudel on one of our trips in Austria and I fell in love with this warm dessert ever since.

Soft, crisp and best served warm, treat your family and guests with this dessert!  

Apfelstrudel is made from Blätterteig (puff pastry dough) traditionally filled with chopped apples, raisins and cookie crumbs, topped with powdered sugar and served warm with vanilla sauce or a scoop of vanilla ice cream on the side. This is perfect with your afternoon coffee or tea. 
This desert is easy to prepare and bake. I made my first batch last year with my daughter and it was delicious! Since then, I would prepare this recipe whenever we want to have Apfelstrudel. You can either prepare the dough yourself if you feel up to it or you can buy the ready to bake ones sold in the supermarket.
For this recipe, I used the one I found online from the magazine Bild der Frau (in German). It has well explained and simple instructions, ideal for beginners like me.

Ingredients: For the dough (if you want to DIY): 125 g flour 70 mL water 1 TBSP oil A pinch of salt
For the filling: 3 pieces apples (preferably Elstar or Boskop variety) 40 g sugar 80 g cookie crumbs (e.g. butter cookies or ladyfingers) 1 pack vanilla sugar A pinch of cinnamon 30 g raisins Lemon juice
Also: Powdered sugar for sprinkling Melted butter Clean dish cloth
Instructions: 1. Knead a smooth dough out of flour, water, oil and salt. Shape the dough into a ball, wrap in cling foil and refrigerate for 1 to 2 hours. You may skip this step if you already have a ready made dough. In my case, I used puff pastry dough.
2. For the filling, wash and peel the apples and cut into small pieces. Drizzle with the lemon to prevent browning. Add sugar, cookie crumbs, vanilla sugar, cinnamon and raisins and mix everything well. (We skipped the raisins because my daughter doesn't like it and added some honey, around 2 TBSP, instead.).
3. Roll out the dough in a square form on a floured work surface. Lay out the kitchen towel, carefully lift the dough onto the towel and pull apart very thinly. 

4. Spread a thin layer of the liquid butter on the dough. Then spread the filling over the lower quarter of the dough, leaving a 1-2 cm wide rim on the outside. Fold the outside over the filling and then roll up the dough tightly using the kitchen towel. 

5. Place the seam down on a baking tray covered with baking paper. Brush with part of the liquid butter and bake in the preheated oven at 180 ° C for 35 minutes. Take out of the oven briefly after half of the baking time and brush with the remaining melted butter. This makes the apple strudel so nice and crispy.

6. Serve while still warm - sprinkled with powdered sugar. You can also serve this with vanilla sauce or a scoop of vanilla ice cream on the side. The warm and cold combination is just wonderful!
Easy peasy does it! Let me know your thoughts once you have tried the recipe.

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