Monthly Archives: July 2014
Strudel!
My grandfather, Karel Dockal, was a baker. I never met him, since he died when my mom was 7 years old. She remembers him making strudel on the kitchen table, the dough covering the entire table. And she remembers him rolling it up in one motion.
I went to a strudel demonstration the other day, and not only got to see it being done, but also had a hand(two hands) in the stretching.
Ellen Vogel
This is my sister-in-law, Ellen Vogel, preparing the dough. Flour, egg, and a little sunflower oil are mixed in a round wooden bowl. The dough is then thrown into the bowl several times, like breaking in a new baseball glove, to remove the air. It then rests in a bath of sunflower oil for 30 minutes.
Then, on a table the size of a card table, with a tea towel on it, the dough is stretched as in the following pictures. The dough is stretched thin enough so that you can read a newspaper through it. Then the filling is spread across half.
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- stretching the dough
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- a little bit longer, now
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- and still more
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- around the table, cleaning the edges
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- scattering the filling on half
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- rolling it up
After that, a small margin is rolled around the sides, sunflower oil spread on the edges so that it can seal as it rolls, and the dough is rolled by lifting the edge of the towel and coaxing it along.
Here’ s a few pictures with the stab we made at it.
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- The guys try!
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- Our turn!
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- Ellen rolling it up.
The finished product!I have seen 2 other techniques for rolling out strudel dough. One was in Vienna at a strudel demonstration at the Palace. They had a motorized lazy susan that spun while the person rolled the dough with a rolling pin. And in Budapest, at the Strudel House, the guy threw it in the air like pizza dough. And they had savory as well as sweet fillings.
| Strudel dough | |
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330 grams flour |
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1 tablespoon Sunflower oil |
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1 each egg |
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0.2 liter water; (from a mixture of 1 liter of water, 1 tsp vinegar and a pinch of salt) |
| Curd cheese filling | |
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1.25 kg curd cheese |
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200 ml sour cream |
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2 each eggs |
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1 each lemon peel |
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2 bags vanilla sugar; (in Europe, vanilla is added by using vanilla flavored sugar). Substitute vanilla extract as desired. |
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100 grams raisins |
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200 grams sugar |
| Poppy seed filling | |
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200 grams poppy seed |
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200 grams sugar |
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2 kg sour cherry without pits |
1. To prepare Curd cheese filling
Mix all ingredients in a bowl.
2. To prepare poppyseed filling
Add poppy seed with sugar to combine. Strew dough with poppy seed mixture and strew sour cherries.
3. To make dough
4. Add water, egg, and oil to combine.
5. Add flour and process until smooth mass forms.
6. Add more flour as required. Dough should be smooth, elastic and slack.
7. Remove from work bowl, cover with cling -film and let rest an hour before using.(at the demonstration I was at, they let it rest for 30 minutes in a bowl of sunflower oil)
8. Gently roll dough with a rolling pin to flatten, on a damp linen towel.
9. Begin stretching strudel. Use your fists to do this and stretch dough from center to out.
10. Stretch, move your hands around the edges until the dough stretched over the edges.
11. Strew dough with desired filling.
12. Using the table cloth to lever the dough up and start rolling strudel into a log.
13. Trim and gently lift up the log onto prepared baking sheet.
Bake in pre-heated oven:
poppy seed: 180 deg C for 20-25 minutes
curd cheese: 180 deg C for 30 minutes
Can’t wait to try my newfound skills and see if I can do it like Grampa!
Finding Pat 