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- Jun 2, 2003
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In southern Germany and Austria, quark-apple strudel is vastly more popular than is apple strudel. Quark is a very mild, slightly sour fresh cheese made from cow's milk, and it is the cheese Germans usually use when making cheesecake and strudel. Locally available quark is insanely expensive (should be 75 cents a pound, but costs like $9 -- which means a strudel or cheesecake will run you around $15 in cheese alone!), and I hate ricotta (and all curd cheese) in terms of texture and taste. Quark can be always be substituted with yogurt cheese, so I make that by draining plain white yogurt through coffee filters. Basically I remove as much whey as possible. Quark can also be made by heating buttermilk mixed with some milk, but the resulting product is not better than yogurt cheese, no to mention the process is smelly and time consuming..
The filling in a quark-apple strudel is quark, a small amount of sugar, eggs, vanilla, lemon juice, and of course apples. Very ripe (wrinkly skin) Golden Delicious have good aroma and work best.
I make strudel not with the traditional strudel dough (similar to a very thin pasta dough). Puff pastry makes for a better tasting shell. Because puff pastry isn't available in conveniently sized sheets, and because it works just the same at 1/3 the expense, I make instead a demi-feuilleté, which is a quick and sloppily made puff pastry. It's made only from flour and butter and a pinch salt, and it works just fine for strudel.
A strudel is usually made as one large roll, but I prefer making several smaller strudel, usually six (this time just two), that I place next to each other in an enameled baking pan. That way there's more shell for everyone, which is a good thing.
Most often a strudel will be dusted with powdered sugar. I don't care for that and serve my strudel plain. I also prefer strudel cold out of the fridge. Traditionally strudel is served fresh out of the hot oven. A strudel is much higher when it comes out of the oven, but it will collapse when it cools down.
Cold strudel:
A few minutes after coming out of the oven:
Before being baked:
The filling in a quark-apple strudel is quark, a small amount of sugar, eggs, vanilla, lemon juice, and of course apples. Very ripe (wrinkly skin) Golden Delicious have good aroma and work best.
I make strudel not with the traditional strudel dough (similar to a very thin pasta dough). Puff pastry makes for a better tasting shell. Because puff pastry isn't available in conveniently sized sheets, and because it works just the same at 1/3 the expense, I make instead a demi-feuilleté, which is a quick and sloppily made puff pastry. It's made only from flour and butter and a pinch salt, and it works just fine for strudel.
A strudel is usually made as one large roll, but I prefer making several smaller strudel, usually six (this time just two), that I place next to each other in an enameled baking pan. That way there's more shell for everyone, which is a good thing.
Most often a strudel will be dusted with powdered sugar. I don't care for that and serve my strudel plain. I also prefer strudel cold out of the fridge. Traditionally strudel is served fresh out of the hot oven. A strudel is much higher when it comes out of the oven, but it will collapse when it cools down.
Cold strudel:
A few minutes after coming out of the oven:
Before being baked:
