00:00To create one of Austria's most iconic desserts, apple strudel, which is one of my favorite
00:13desserts. I'm glad. I love it too. Everybody loves apple strudel. And I think you are one
00:18of the masters of pulling strudel dough. I've been doing it for a long time. And so we're
00:24going to start with the dough. One and a half cups of unbleached bread flour, or 200 grams.
00:32Into the flour, you want a half teaspoon of fine sea salt. Good. And if you stir that in,
00:37I'm going to get the liquid ingredients ready, which are one large egg. So that's just going
00:44to go into a measuring cup and you'll see why in a second. Tablespoon of neutral vegetable
00:51oil. I like to use a nice organic cold-pressed safflower oil. That's good. It has a really
00:58mild flavor. And now we want to add warm water so that you get just to about two-thirds of
01:06a cup. And then whisk that together a little bit. That's enough. And then that goes right
01:13in. And first what we want to do is stir that all together. And then we can put it on the
01:19mixer and let the dough hook do the work of kneading it. We can put it on the mixer. Second
01:24speed is good. There we go. That's perfect. So that takes a while. I'm just going to put a drop
01:34of oil in the bowl. The equivalent of about a quarter of a teaspoon. I'd love to show the
01:41alternative method to mixing it by machine, which is pounding the dough against the table. Well, that would
01:47be great. So let's take that dough out of the mixer. And I'll show that very quickly. And then we can move
01:54to our dough that's already made. So if you don't have a mixer, you do what we did initially, which is
02:01to stir everything together. A little bit of flour on the work surface. And then it's a whack and fold
02:09and turn. See, I'm pressing it down, I'm folding it, and then I'm grabbing it from the side. And you do that
02:17approximately a hundred times. You have good hands for this. Which sounds like, yeah, and a little experience.
02:24And that's enough? When it's ready, into the bowl, press it down so that the oil gets on top,
02:31and then cover it. Good. Just leave it at room temperature. For how long? At least an hour or two,
02:38even overnight. Okay. Next, we're going to make the filling. I like to make a cooked apple filling.
02:44This is a Golden Delicious apple. It has kind of a hard texture. Right. So for the filling, a little bit
02:51of water goes into a pan. And this kind of enameled iron casserole is exactly what I like to use.
02:59The apples go in. And we've got, I think, half a cup of sugar. I'll give you that. Yeah. And that can
03:05go right on top. A half a cup of raisins. Right. And the raisins go in right away. Golden raisins.
03:11Either. Or currants, even. And a little bit of cinnamon. Now, my recipe calls for half a teaspoon.
03:17I always like to put more. I like cinnamon with the apples. These need to start to cook until you can
03:24hear them sizzle. Once they're sizzling, I cover them. I lower the heat and I wait about 10 minutes
03:32at the point where you take off the cover and you see the apples swimming in water. Leave the cover
03:38off. Lower the heat and then just let it reduce to the point where there isn't any more liquid left
03:45in the pan. And you just have the apples. And the whole thing takes about 20-25 minutes.
03:51It really does evaporate. And the color is great. Good. Walnuts. Right in. Three quarters of a cup
03:58of chopped walnuts. Right. They should be coarsely chopped. And then tilt the pan. And,
04:05you know, as long as that cools down to room temperature, we're going to be fine. It doesn't
04:11need to be ice cold. So that's the apple filling. As soon as it's cool to the touch, we can stretch
04:18the dough. Excellent. There's an old wives' tale that a man will not marry a woman if he cannot read
04:24his newspaper through her stretched strudel dough. Interesting. Yes. So I will not marry you,
04:31Nick, unless your strudel dough is thin enough. Here, this is ingenious. One of your crop people
04:39sewed two flour sacks together. Good. So what I'm going to do is put an abundant amount of flour on
04:48here. Okay. So that's the rested dough. So I always like to pat it out into a pancake. Doesn't matter if
04:56the cloth is moving a little bit. First of all, a little flour on top. And then I like to roll out
05:04the dough as thinly as I can roll it. Once that's rolled out, a little oil on the surface of the
05:12dough. Now what this does is it prevents the surface of the dough from drying out while you're stretching
05:19it. Okay. This is the way to stretch the dough. Fists underneath it. So we start in the center. And cut
05:26your nails, ladies. Yes. No dagger nails, right? Right. So you start in the center. And where the dough
05:35stretches and becomes thinner, it becomes lighter in color. Now what if it gets a hole? Heaven forbid.
05:41If it gets a hole, your job is to not tell anybody.
05:49How beautiful. Okay. Now what I like to do,
05:53we can both pull sideways. This is fabulous. Yeah. And what I like to do here is anchor the dough
06:01over the edges. A little hole there. A little hole there. But you see, you violated the pact,
06:09Martha. You're not supposed to say anything. If there's a hole, then nobody knows. True.
06:14Okay. Now where's that newspaper? Well, I'll use my script. If I can read this, we can get married.
06:20Let's see. Okay. I can read. Facts. Let's see. Facts. Strudel in Austria. Oh my gosh. It is called
06:27Opfelsstrudel. Well, that, those Austrian men. Listen, you don't have to buy me a ring. I'll just
06:32take one of those earrings, okay? Oh, okay. Next, we're going to do our butter. Okay. It's a question of just
06:41drizzling it on. You don't want a ton of butter on there.
06:45So first thing is our buttered breadcrumbs. These are some breadcrumbs cooked in butter.
06:52So now we're going to take the filling and put it right on top of the breadcrumbs.
06:56Now there's a touch of cinnamon in here. I think before when we were making the filling,
07:00it smells amazing. This is a pretty fat strudel. Yeah.
07:04This much? All of it? Oh yeah. All of it can go in. See, I like that because I don't like it when it's
07:09skimpy. Yeah. Good. So, rolling is like this. We're covering the dough. I'm just folding the sides
07:18in a little bit. Lift the paper and just let it roll. And there we go. Okay, that just needs to be
07:26folded under. Do not be afraid of lifting it onto the pan. Okay. I'm not afraid. Good. That looks nice.
07:37And then I'm going to put a little bit more butter on the outside. And this is probably the most
07:44important thing about forming the strudel is docking the top deeply with some openings.
07:51Because when you do that, the steam is not going to accumulate on the inside of the strudel.
07:57I forgot to ask you what temperature oven. 400. And if you have convection so much,
08:02the better. It'll bake faster. About how long? It takes about half an hour,
08:06a little bit longer. That's all. I usually like to judge by the color.
08:10Fantastic. So, into the oven, 400 degrees. Right.
08:15Here it is. It's been out of the oven for about how long? About half an hour. Okay. It's cool enough
08:19to touch. And I'm going to put just a little tiny bit of confectioner's sugar on it. It makes the
08:27flakiness stand out a little bit. Like, make a couple of nice diagonal cuts. I don't like the end.
08:33I don't either. We're going to have to find somebody to eat it. Okay. And...
08:39Wow, is that beautiful. And for you...
08:41Mit schlag. Mit schlag. With whipped cream, as they say in Vienna. I'm going to have some too.
08:49It is the perfect, perfect strudel. Thank you very much.
08:52You're welcome. Thank you, Martha. Okay. But I do have to taste it.
08:56Yeah, me too. Because without tasting it, how would I really know?
08:59Yeah. Mmm. A masterpiece. We're choosing a really nice firm apple for the dumpling.
09:06Peel the apples, leaving the stem intact. And we are going to core them partially.
09:12This recipe is for six apples. We're going to bake the apples for approximately an hour.
09:17Approximately an hour.
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