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Nook is a cosy eatery in Stellenbosch, South Africa offering light meals, pastries, cakes, daily specials and a lunch buffet. We like things homemade and super fresh.
We are available for functions, please contact us for more info.
Cherry Strudel
Strudel. Shtrrrooooodel. I had not made traditional strudel for almost 8 years since work experience in a Dubai hotel pastry kitchen, whose 11 restaurants included a Viennese tea room. You often find strudels are made using puff or phyllo pastry, but Austrian strudel pastry is very different. The dough is worked vigorously to make it very elastic, then rolled out and stretched very thinly by hand. Purists say it should be so thin that a newspaper (or love letter) can be read through it. The best way to work with the dough is to lay it out on a sheet, after which the filling is spread on it. The dough with the filling on top is then rolled up carefully with the help of the sheet, and then baked in the oven until golden. There are so many varieties of strudel fillings, the best known being Apfelstrudel (apple strudel) and Topfenstrudel (sweet soft cream cheese).
Last December we went cherry picking in Ceres. We then spent an afternoon stoning and bottling kilos of cherries. Christmas red, deep burgundy, blushing pink and yellow. Even after giving plenty jars out as gifts it has taken us several months to work our way through our little store. We have eaten them warmed up and poured over ice cream, as a relish to accompany pork belly, and this weekend in a strudel, together with thinly sliced apple and walnuts.
ingredients
- 2 cups all purpose stone ground flour
- 1 free range egg
- 175ml lukewarm water
- 1/2 teaspoon lemon juice
- pinch of salt
- 125g melted butter
- 500g cherries, stoned
- 2 apples, thinly sliced
- 1/2 cup brown sugar
- 1/2 cup chopped walnuts
- 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon optional
- lemon zest
- icing sugar to dust
method
- Place the flour in the bowl of a standing mixer with a dough hook attachment. Add the egg, water, lemon juice and salt, and work the dough for 5 – 7 minutes until smooth and shiny. Turn the dough out onto a work surface and cover with an upturned bowl or damp tea towel so that it does not dry out, and leave to rest for at least 3o minutes. Preheat the oven to 190 degrees celcius and grease a baking sheet.
- To roll the dough, cover a table with a sheet and lightly flour the surface. Place the dough ball in the middle of the sheet and roll to as large a square as possible. Cover it with a damp tea towel and leave to rest for 15 minutes.
- Flour your hands and place them under the dough. Starting at the center and working outward, carefully stretch the dough with both hands, palms facing down towards the table and using mainly your knuckles. Do not worry if small holes appear, they will not show when the dough is rolled up.
- Continue to work outward as the dough gets thinner, gently lifting and flopping it on the surface. It should be stretched to about 1m square. Brush the dough with melted butter – Use stretched strudel dough at once as it dries quickly and will become brittle.
- Sprinkle with the cherries, sliced apple, sugar and walnuts, cinnamon if using, and the lemon zest. Trim off the thick edge of the dough before rolling up with the help of the sheet. Visit this link to see a strudel story in action.
- Transfer the roll to the prepared baking sheet and shape it into a crescent. Brush with melted butter and bake in the preheated oven until crisp and light brown, about 30 – 40 minutes. The strudel is cooked when a skewer inserted in the center is hot when withdrawn.
Serve hot, sprinkled with icing sugar, and a side of whipped cream.
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