Apple Strudel

We’re back to Bake Off challenges! This is number 18 of 31 and is from GBBO “How To Turn Everyday Bakes Into Showstoppers”. We have not used Filo pastry before and don’t have much experience eating it either. I may have had strudel, but I don’t remember it and Becky has never had it. 

First you soak 100g raisins in 1 tbsp of rum or lemon juice for 1 hour. Add 75g/1/4 cup butter to a frying pan and lightly brown 100g fresh breadcrumbs. Add 1 tbsp sugar and cook for a minute. Cool. Peel, core and slice 1 kg/2 lbs apples (we used 8 macintosh). We added some lemon juice to stop the apple browning. Stir in 4 tbsp sugar and 1 tsp cinnamon. Add the raisins. 

It says to make a pastry square 80cm/ 32″ long on top of a piece of cloth. Hmm. That’s huge! We made it about 20″ square with 8 filo pieces. Brush with melted butter.  Spread the breadcrumbs ever the dough. Spread 100g ground almonds in a 8 cm/3″ band 8cm/3″ from the edge. Spread the apples on top of the almonds. I misunderstood this and we spread the almonds and apples all over. 

If you left a wide band then fold that over the apples and start rolling. 

Use the cloth to pull the pastry up to roll tucking the ends as you go. Shape to fit the baking sheet.  Brush with melted butter and bake at 190C/375F for 30-35 minutes until golden brown and crispy. Ours was in for 45 minutes. As you can see, the pastry ripped in several places and looked terrible. I think it was too dry and needed some moisture plus it needed the wide bands without any filling. Anyway, we dusted with icing sugar and tucked in. 

It certainly passed the taste test. Delish! This was definitely a challenge for us and we learnt a lot along the way. There was lots of pastry left over and there was very little clean up afterwards. Both are good reasons to try filo pastry again. 

By the way, the fried breadcrumbs are great. Buttery, crunchy and sweet. We’ll definitely add those to some recipes or maybe just some ice cream 🙂
Happy Baking 

Cheryl and Becky