Here’s a delicious sweet bake for afternoon tea - German Apple Strudel (Apfelstrudel). Apple pie filling in a crispy layered phyllo dough crust. You can assemble this strudel in 10 minutes and then bake them golden brown in the oven. Meanwhile, prepare a delicious homemade warm vanilla sauce (Austrian Kanarienmilch), which completes this delightful homemade apple strudel. Not only great in the holiday or apple season. This recipe is excellent throughout the year.
Preheat the oven to 350 °F (180 °C). Line a baking sheet with baking paper.
Combine raisins, rum, lemon juice, and butter in a saucepan. Bring to a boil on medium heat until the butter is melted. Give it a good stir and let it cool to room temperature.
½ cup raisins, ¼ cup Dark Rum, 1 teaspoon Lemon juice, 4 tablespoons butter
Take a medium bowl and combine apples, sugar, salt, cinnamon, raisin mixture, and bread crumbs. Mix.
4 Apples, ½ cup sugar, ½ teaspoon salt, 1 teaspoon cinnamon, ¾ cup bread crumbs
Take a sheet of phyllo dough and put it on a baking paper. Brush the sheet with the melted butter. Put a second sheet on top. Brush that also with melted butter. Repeat until you get a 5-layer stack of phyllo dough.
10 sheets phyllo dough, ⅓ cup butter
Take the apple filling and put on a stripe of filling on the bottom of the phyllo dough at full length—about 3-4 inches thick.
Use the baking paper and roll the phyllo dough around the filling. You’ll get a cylinder form. Brush the outside with melted butter.
Transfer the strudel to the baking plate, and ensure the seam side is at the bottom. Repeat for the other phyllo dough sheets (grease the sheets with butter, fill and roll up), and put the second apple strudel aside from the first one. Slice the top of the dough halfway through into serving-size portions.
Bake for 50 minutes. Rotate the baking plate halfway to get even baking.
Vanilla sauce (Kanarienmilch)
Heat the milk in a saucepan.
2 cups milk
Add vanilla and sugar and mix until dissolved.
2 teaspoons vanilla extract, ¼ cup sugar
In a large bowl, add the egg yolks and start whisking until they’re creamy.
2 egg yolks
When the milk boils, add it to the egg yolks little by little while whisking until frothy.
Serve
Take the apple strudel from the oven and cut a slice. Sprinkle with confectioner’s sugar. Serve with some warm vanilla sauce!
NOTES
1. Apples - use a firm apple like Granny Smith, Honeycrisp, Gala, or Golden Delicious for the filling.2. Rum - for flavoring the filling. I prefer brown rum because it has more flavor and more depth. You could use gold rum or white rum. If you don’t like to use alcohol, replace it with water.3. Bread crumbs - to absorb released moisture so your dough remains crispy.4. Phyllo dough - a thin flour-based dough. By brushing each sheet with melted butter, you’ll get a crispy layered crust on the outside. Cover the phyllo dough with a damp towel as you work to keep it moist. Otherwise, it will dry very quickly.5. Oven - When you use a conventional oven, set the temperature to 350 °F (180 °C). In a convection oven, 320 °F (160 °C) is sufficient.6. Storage
Refrigerator, unbaked - wrap in plastic foil until baking up to two days.
Refrigerator, baked - Store in an airtight container for two days. Reheat before serving for 15 minutes at 300 °F (150 °C).
Freezer, unbaked - Put apple strudel in a freezer bag and freeze for one month.
Not recommended - Freeze baked apple strudel. It will become soggy if you store it when baked and defrost it.
7. Nutritional value - The nutritional value is per serving.