Daring Bakers May: Strudel

Another month, another Daring Bakers' challenge. After last month's challenge, which put our creativity to the test, we were now presented with a task which was all about technique:

The May Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Linda of make life sweeter! and Courtney of Coco Cooks. They chose Apple Strudel from the recipe book Kaffeehaus: Exquisite Desserts from the Classic Cafés of Vienna, Budapest and Prague by Rick Rodgers.

Well, actually not all about technique: we didn't have to make apple strudel but could decide the filling ourselves. Some went for sweet, some went for savory, some went nuts and made strudel after strudel after strudel...! To see the other Daring Bakers' creations, visit the Daring Kitchen. For the recipe, visit our hosts, Courtney and Linda.

Pastry dough is always a bit intimidating, but this one, unlike other pastry doughs I've come across, did not involve folding and rolling in of copious amounts of butter. Actually, it doesn't have any butter at all, which means it's not terribly unhealthy. Making the dough was easy and straightforward, and while it rested we prepared ourselves mentally for the really challenging part - rolling out and stretching the dough.

I have to admit, I'm not 100% satisfied with our performance on that part. Judging from the photos of other Daring Bakers, we didn't get it thin enough - while others really got it tissue thin, we only made it to paper thickness, and I think this did have some impact on the end result. I believe the problem might have been that we worked too much flour into the dough while rolling it, which made it too hard. The dough was still very easy to work with, but it wasn't as cooperative as other Daring Bakers have described it. I wanted to make a second strudel attempt, with a different filling, but frankly I never felt up for it in the weeks prior to the reveal. But we'll get back to it in the future, promise!

So, what about the filling?! Oh, guess I forgot to tell you that. It involves this:



Unpasteurized Camembert cheese. Smelly, gooey, French and wonderful! Inspired by a very tasty, and somewhat retro, desert - deep fried Camembert cheese with cloudberry jam* - we filled our strudel with slices of Camembert and home made cloudberry jam.



Look at that beautiful jam! To make it we simply boiled cloudberries (thawed frozen ones since fresh ones are almost impossible to find here, at least at this time of the year) with sugar. Weigh the cloudberries and add sugar equal to 20% of their weight. Let it cool before using.

We baked our strudel for 25 minutes, and was unfortunately greeted with this when we got it out of the oven:



Serious leakage! I can see why it leaked from the end since we probably didn't close it well enough, but that leakage from the middle was weird because we didn't have any holes in the dough. Oh well, at least most of the filling had stayed inside the strudel. Wanna see it?



I want it to be flakier and have more layers- we can blame that on our inability to stretch the dough to the max. It was still mighty tasty though, and we devoured it with sweet wine. The natural choice was of course an Austrian one, Andert Josef 2007 Grand Cuvée Beerenauslese, which worked like a charm with the Camembert-cloudberry strudel.

Thank you Linda and Courtney for challenging us with something we never would have made if it weren't for the Daring Bakers. We're definitely making this again: over dinner Markus came up with the idea of making spring rolls using the strudel dough. Just imagine: mini desert strudel spring rolls... We'll get back to you...!

*How to make this goodie:
Cut chunks of Camembert cheese and coat them in 1. flour 2. lightly whisked egg 3. breadcrumbs. Deep fry until golden brown. Serve with cloudberry jam.