Braided Apple Strudel
I prepared the strudel for the New Year's Eve dinner and since I wanted it to be more festive, I chose to make this beautiful braid. The dough turned out wonderfully - I couldn't find any flaw in it - and it's definitely much better than the strudel I used to make with store-bought puff pastry.
The filling can vary of course, put whatever your heart desires, just make sure it's not too liquid: well-drained fruits from compote, vanilla cream or chocolate cream, any kind of pudding.
Ingredients
Dough
225 g flour
1/2 packet dry yeast
40 g sugar
1 egg
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
80 ml warm milk
a pinch of salt
125 g butter + 1 tablespoon flour
Filling
4 apples
cinnamon
3 tablespoons sugar
2 teaspoons cornstarch
How to prepare braided apple strudel
- Knead an elastic dough from all ingredients except the butter with flour. If the dough is a bit sticky (depends on the size of the egg), add a little more flour. I added an extra tablespoon.
- Shape the dough into a rectangle, wrap it in plastic wrap and refrigerate for 30 minutes.
- Cream the room-temperature butter with 1 tablespoon of flour until fluffy.
- Prepare the filling: peel the apples. Remove the core and cut them into slices.
- Put 3 apples in a small pot, add water up to half their level, add cinnamon to taste and sugar, and cook for about 10 minutes until the apples soften.
- Drain the water from the apples and then puree them in a blender. Put the puree back in the pot, taste for sugar and cinnamon and add more if you want. Bring the puree to a boil and add the cornstarch gradually. Remove from heat.
- Cut the remaining apple into small cubes and add them to the puree. The filling is ready!
- Take the dough out of the refrigerator, roll it into a rectangle and spread 1/3 of the creamed butter in the center. Bring the side edges over the butter, then fold again from the opposite end (see photos). Wrap the folded dough in plastic wrap and refrigerate for 30 minutes. Repeat this step 2 more times with the remaining butter.
- Roll out the dough into a 30 cm x 20 cm sheet on parchment paper. Draw two guideline lines lengthwise to divide the dough perfectly into 3.
- On the side pieces, make cuts slightly diagonal every 2 cm using a box cutter or a dough wheel.
- Put the filling in the center along the entire length and lift the opposite ends of the cuts to seal the filling.
- Then braid the dough by bringing the side strips over the filling.
* Try to pull each strip as far as possible to the opposite side. Unfortunately, I didn't do this - I brought the strips only to the middle and the strudel came out a bit wide; it's just an appearance issue I realized after making it - Carefully move the strudel with the parchment paper onto the baking sheet. Put the sheet in a large plastic bag and let it rise for 2 hours.
- Bake in the preheated oven at 180°C for 25 minutes.
Dough after 30 min in the refrigerator
Apple filling
Roll out the dough and spread with butter
Fold the dough - step 1
Fold the dough - step 2
Draw the lines for braiding
Cut the dough
Add the filling in the center
Lift the edges
Braided Apple Strudel
Let rise for 2 hours
Bake the strudel
