Nonna's Apple Strudel
INGREDIENTS
- For the pastry:
- 3/4 cup milk
- 40 g butter
- 2 tablespoons sugar
- 2 cups self raising flour
- 2 medium eggs, beaten
- For the filling:
- 10 Granny Smith apples peeled, cored and thinly sliced
- ½ cup quince or apricot jam
- 6 tablespoons sugar
- 100 g butter
- 1/2 cup currants
- 1/2 cup sultanas
- ground cinnamon
- ground cloves
METHOD
Place the milk, butter and sugar in a pan and bring to a simmer, stirring to dissolve the sugar. Remove the pan from the heat and allow to cool. Place the flour in a bowl, make a well in the centre, and add the eggs and milk mixture, leaving a couple of tablespoons of milk as a basting liquid. Stir roughly until the flour mixture forms into a ball.
On a floured bench, knead the dough gently; the consistency should be a little softer than pasta dough. Cover with cling film and refrigerate.
Divide the pastry into thirds. Flour the bench and the rolling pin lightly and roll out the first portion of the pastry to an oval shape approximately 28 cm x 26 cm and ½ cm thick.
Spread the pastry thinly with jam to the edges. Spread a third of the apples over the pastry leaving a 2cm edge free. Sprinkle the apples with 2 tablespoons of sugar, then dot with 1/3 of the butter, 1/3 of the currants and 1/3 of the sultanas. Sprinkle with cinnamon and cloves to your taste
Fold in the edges of the pastry over the apples, and gently roll the strudel from the right edge to the centre and over again. Pick up the strudel with two wide spatulas or egg flips and lay it on a baking tray. Repeat the procedure for the next 2 strudels.
Baste the strudels with the left over milk mixture and bake them in a moderate oven for 1+1/2 hours. During cooking baste the strudel intermittently with the buttery syrup that oozes onto the baking tray, doing this you will have lovely, shiny, golden strudel.
