APPLE STRUDEL (MY OWN QUICK RECIPE)

⎨Apple strudel: my own quick recipe⎬

Autumn is the season of apple strudels, that I've been loving since I was a child. For me, this dessert conjures up feelings of happiness and homecoming, and images of mountains, mountain huts and pine trees. It is typical of South Tyrol, Austria, Switzerland... all the places that I love so much and I visit often.

The recipe I'm sharing today on my blog is a super-quick alternative to the regular recipe.

While you can use any type of apple, the perfect variety is the Renetta apple (... the queen of baking!), or Golden apples.

This quick alternative recipe I have come up with, is made with pre-cooked apples, that drastically cut assembling time and baking time.

A neighbor had given us a huge basket of Renetta apples from his trees, and we had to cook some of them immediately. Once I had all those apples on hand to do something with, I thought to make a strudel, and this is how I discovered that you can also use pre-cooked apples instead of fresh ones.

My recipe is as follows:

Ingredients:

- about 1 kg (35 oz) Renetta apples (peeled, cored and cut in 4)

- 1 rolled brisée pastry (NOT puff pastry!)

- 3 Savoiardi biscuits/ Ladyfingers

- raisins, 2-3 tablespoons

- pine nuts, 2 tablespoons

- ground cinnamon

- a brown sugar sachet (5 gr./1 teaspoon brown sugar)

- milk to brush

 Oven: 180°C/356F for 25-30 minutes

Method:

1. Preheat the oven.

2. Peel, core and cut the apples.

3. Microwave cook for 5 minutes at 800W (covered) and let it cool down a bit.

4. Slice- don't chop- the cooked apples and place them in a bowl (without liquid).

5. Add the Savoiardi biscuits (crush with a potato masher), raisins and pine nuts. Add cinnamon to taste (1 teaspoon is enough for me). No sugar is necessary and we don't use it, because the apples and biscuits are already sweet.

6. Stir well with a wooden spoon (don't use a mixer).

4. Transfer the rolled pastry on a baking tray. Spoon filling into the central section of the pastry, and fold over the two sections without filling one on top of the other, to form a long rectangle. Seal laterally. Make four cuts in the top layer of the strudel.

7. Brush with milk, and sprinkle with brown sugar.

5. Bake until golden brown, for about 25-30 minutes (it depends on your oven, keep an eye on it after 20 minutes!).

You can naturally adjust sugar to your taste and needs, and even use sugar substitutes.

Enjoy!

Monica xoxo

P.S. Not suitable for freezing when baked, but you can make it and freeze it- to be baked at a later date!