Recipes
(Recipe) Vegan Apple Strudel
Introduction
Vegan Apple Strudel
Homemade is so much more fun!
When it comes to strudel pastry, most Austrians would agree that for REAL Apfelstrudel, the dough has to be handmade. Even if a lot of people resort to store-bought pastry these days for simplicity, basically a filo style dough. Real strudel dough, however, is stretched paper thin on the back of the baker’s hands, ‘until you can read a newspaper through it’.
The dough itself, by the way, is traditionally vegan. It’s made with just the simple ingredients of flour, oil and water. A little bit of vinegar or lemon juice helps make the dough more stretchy and elastic.
What makes a traditional Apfelstrudel not vegan, is the use of butter to toast the bread crumbs and brush the dough with. In our vegan apple strudel recipe that is easily replaced with sunflower oil or other oils.
Vegan Apple Strudel
Ingredients
Dough
- 200 g flour white, all-purpose. Plus extra
- 100 ml water
- 2 tbsp vegetable oil
- 1/2 tsp vinegar apple cider
Filling
- 600 g apples cores removed
- 50 g breadcrumbs
- 2 tsp cinnamon
- 3 tbsp sugar
- 1 tsp vegetable oil
Dusting
- icing sugar
Method
Prepare the Dough
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Mix all dough ingredients together and knead for 5 – 10 min into a smooth dough.
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Place in a lightly oiled bowl, cover with a lid or a tea towel. Let dough rest for 1 hour.
Prepare the filling
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Cut the apples into thin slices.
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Mix the apple slices with the sugar and cinnamon.
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In a frying pan, toast the breadcrumbs on medium heat until golden brown. Stir continuously!
Stretching the Dough
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Preheat the oven to 180˚C, fan.
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Sprinkle a rather large tea towel or table cloth generously with flour. On it, roll out the dough with a rolling pin until it’s about 3-5 mm thick. Turn over occasionally.
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Slide your hands under the dough. From the center outwards, stretch out the dough on your hands.
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Work your way around the whole dough until you get a sheet of about the size of a baking tray. Ideally, the dough is so thin, it gets transparent.
Filling and Baking
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Top one half of the sheet of dough with the breadcrumbs, followed by the apple mix. Spare about 7 cm around the edges.
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Brush the other half of the dough with vegetable oil.
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Using the tea towel beneath, fold the long edges over the filling. You can fold the sides now as well, or close the ends of the strudel after rolling. Roll the strudel, again utilising the tea towel, beginning at the side with the filling.
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Roll the strudel off the tea towel onto a baking sheet lined with baking paper.
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Bake at 180˚C fan, for 30 minutes, until the strudel is crisp and brown.
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When the strudel comes out of the oven, sprinkle with icing sugar.
More recipes
Introduction
Healthy Halloween Stuffed Peppers
Halloween Stuffed Peppers
Prep: 25 minutes
Cook: 35 minutes
Serves: 4
Ingredients
- 4 small peppers (a mix of orange, red and yellow looks nice)
- 25g pine nuts
- 1 tbsp olive or rapeseed oil
- 1 red onion , chopped
- 2 fat garlic cloves , crushed
- 1 small aubergine , chopped into small pieces
- 200g pouch mixed grains (we used bulghur wheat and quinoa)
- 2 tbsp sundried tomato paste
- zest of 1 lemon
- bunch basil , chopped
Method
- STEP 1
Cut the tops off the peppers (keeping the tops to one side) and remove the seeds and any white flesh from inside. Use a small sharp knife to carve spooky Halloween faces into the sides. Chop any offcuts into small pieces and set aside.
- STEP 2
Toast the pine nuts in a dry pan for a few mins until golden, and set aside. Heat the oil in the pan, and heat the oven to 200C/180C fan/gas 6. Cook the onion in the oil for 8-10 mins until softened. Stir in the garlic, pepper offcuts and aubergine and cook for another 10 mins, until the veggies are soft. Add a splash of water if the pan looks dry. Season.
- STEP 3
Squeeze the pouch of grains to break them up, then tip into the pan with the tomato paste. Stir for a minute or two to warm through, then remove from the heat and add the lemon zest, basil and pine nuts.
- STEP 4
Fill each pepper with the grain mixture. Replace the lids, using cocktail sticks to secure them in place, and put the peppers in a deep roasting tin with the carved faces facing upwards. Cover with foil and bake for 35 mins, uncovered for the final 10. The peppers should be soft and the filling piping hot.