Making a dessert doesn't have to be an all day, time intensive job and there is nothing wrong with using pre-made ingredients if that saves you time and stress. What matters is that you enjoyed the process, you made something you are proud of, and most importantly of all....it's delicious!
Yesterday I was in the meat section of the supermarket and while the butcher was packing up my order, some pork weinerschnitzel caught my eye. The last time we had that was up in Leavenworth and my son refused to order it even when we knew he would love it. Sometimes trying new things is scary, right? Anyway, at the end of dinner we finally convinced him to take an adventure bite and all he could say was "Why did you let me order my dinner when I could have had THAT???" Every. Time. So when I saw it at our local shop, into the cart it went for a spur of the moment dinner surprise for the guys.
Dinner plans quickly turned into a German themed dinner night with bratkartoffeln added to the menu and then my husband asked what I was making for dessert. Ummmm, I didn't think I had to make a dessert with this one but sure, why not? My day was already full with CrossFit, meeting a friend, and household chores but I knew I could manage to bake something with what I already had in the house because going back to the store was not an option.
A quick internet search of "German desserts" brought up plenty of wonderful looking streusels and cakes that I would love to make...if I had the day to work on it. Time plus the concern that I don't need to have an entire cream filled Bienenstich, Käseshanetorte, or Baumkuchen in the house for three people (not to mention the egg and dairy (and calories in most of them I shouldn't have either) made me lean towards a strudel with vanilla sauce. It's a little more rustic which means attention to detail is not so important. The baking time is shorter and once it comes out of the oven, it doesn't require any further assembly like a cake would. Bonus points that the filling is vegan and the puffed pastry I had in mind is also egg and dairy free.
A dessert doesn't have to be Instagram worthy every time, my goal is a family dessert that isn't over the top and I can put together quickly.
And this one would bring back memories from when we lived in Venlo too. I remember eating warm apple strudel with a vanilla cream sauce when we would hop across the border for groceries or an afternoon hike and stop for coffee. It was something to look forward to and always hit the spot.
When I decided on strudel, I was thinking strudel in terms of what I see at Costco or at most bakeries here: puffed pastry with a fruit filling and a generous sprinkle of crystal sugar on top. But what I found with some quick research was that true Vienna and southern German style apple strudel uses a handmade dough that isn't layers upon flaky layers of butter sandwiched between dough like puff pastry is, it's more like a phylo dough where it is pulled and stretched paper thin and then carefully wrapped around the filling. And then they started talking about making breadcrumbs and toasting them in butter. I could feel myself getting sucked into the technical challenge but then I looked at the clock and realized I was never going to get my workout in, get dinner on the table, and have the dessert done in time without the stress getting to me. Time to think about a quick and easy way to do this using some ideas I had seen in all the recipes I looked at and the ingredients I had available.
I did find a few recipes that used puffed pastry, but not many. Plus I'm now fixated on that thin pastry dough. I did have a package of puffed pastry in my freezer so that right there would save me an hour of work if I could find a way to use it to my advantage. The few other quick and easy recipes online did too, so I'm going with it. Instead of toasting breadcrumbs in a pan, I found a box of Panko and I need that anyway to make my own chickenschnitzel for dinner. I wanted a vanilla sauce to go with the strudel but I couldn't spend the time it takes to make one from scratch with egg yolks and double boilers and all that. A package of instant vanilla pudding mix I had in my pantry would have to come into play somehow.
I grabbed my ingredients and got to work as fast as I could and this is what I came up with for a quick and easy apple strudel with vanilla sauce.
This is one of those recipes where you don't have to be exact with your measurements. If you don't have enough apples, make a smaller strudel or just have a higher dough to filling ratio. I've never had complaints about that. Like yours extra sweet? Add more sugar or use a sweeter variety of apple. I used monk fruit sugar to keep some of the calories at bay. Don't like raisins? Skip that. You could add chopped walnuts, you can use more or less cinnamon. If you end up with more apple filling than you can fit in the strudel, save it and cook it down and make applesauce. Since I was busy chopping apples, I did all of mine and had a big bowl of applesauce for the rest of the week to enjoy. The world is your strudel, own it.
Quick and Easy Apple Strudel
makes 2 strudels, 6 servings each
Ingredients
Apple Strudel Filling
1 package of frozen puffed pastry: I used Pepperidge Farm which contains two sheets of pastry and is also egg and dairy free.
1/2 cup raisins
3 large Granny Smith apples
1 tablespoon lemon juice
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 tablespoon sugar or sugar replacement such as monk fruit
2 tablespoons Panko breadcrumbs, divided
1 egg, optional
Powdered sugar for dusting, optional
Vanilla Sauce
1/2 cup instant vanilla pudding powder
1 1/2 cup milk or 1 cup milk alternative (not soy, it won't thicken)
Directions
Preheat oven to 375F
Remove the puffed pastry from the box and separate the two sheets from each other so they can start to thaw while you work on the filling.
In a heat proof bowl or large measuring cup, heat up enough water to submerge the raisins. Let these soak while you work on the rest of the filling.
Peel, core, and chop the apples into small pieces. I saved even more time here by using a food processor to do the work for me. I chopped one apple by hand so I would have a mix of bigger and smaller pieces in the strudel.
Put the apple in a large mixing bowl, add the lemon juice, and stir so all the apples get some juice on them. The juice will not only keep the apples from browning, it will add a little tartness back to the filling once we start adding the sweet ingredients.
Add the cinnamon and sugar to the apples and stir until evenly coated. Set aside.
Drain the raisins in a colander or strainer and let them air dry while you roll out the pastry in the next steps.
Lightly dust your work surface with flour and unfold one puff pastry sheet.
Using a rolling pin, roll out the pastry as big and as thin as you can get it making a rectangle shape out of it. This is going to help the pastry not puff during baking and keep it more like the traditional Vienna style strudel. You can see in the pictures below the size of the original pastry sheet (right) and how big I rolled it out (left).
Now, add the drained raisins to the apple mixture and give it a final stir.
Sprinkle 1 tablespoon of Panko across the entire rolled out pastry.
Place half of the apple filling along the long edge of the puff pastry leaving 2 inches of pastry uncovered so you can fold it over the top later.
Slightly wet the edges of the pastry and then we will begin to roll it up.
First, fold the lower part of the pastry up and over the apple filling. Second, fold the sides over and pinch the dough to seal it. Now start carefully rolling the dough and the filling over itself until you are at the end of the rectangle. Pinch the dough to seal.
Transfer the strudel to a parchment line baking sheet, seam side down.
Repeat the same steps with your second sheet of pastry and the rest of your apple filling. Anything that you don't fit in the pasty you can repurpose into applesauce.
Brush with beaten egg if desired; it will give it a glossy sheen when it comes out of the oven.
Bake at 375F for 18-20 minutes until golden brown on top.
As it bakes, make your easy vanilla sauce by combining the pudding mix and milk and stirring until it is smooth. You might need to add a little more milk to get it the right consistency for your taste.
Remove from oven and let cool on the baking sheet for 10 minutes and then move it to a wire cooling rack. At this point, you can decide to eat it warm or to let it continue to cool and serve later. If serving later, you can warm up your pastry in the microwave or slide back into a warm oven for a few minutes.
For serving, dust with a liberal coating of powdered sugar and then slice each pastry into 6 pieces. Spoon some vanilla sauce onto a plate, place a piece of strudel on top, and then dust with powdered sugar. It's also great with a scoop of vanilla ice cream instead of the sauce!
It's not a fancy drip cake, it's not a cookie or bread recipe I spent years developing. This quick and easy apple strudel is warm, comforting, and made with lots of love. It looks handmade because it is handmade, just not 100% from scratch. And there's NOTHING wrong with that. I've always thought that if a boxed cake mix or store bought frosting is what it takes to get you into the kitchen and creating, then do it. It's not what you make it with, it's the thought and care that goes into the process and the pride when you can say you made your child their birthday cake, a special dish for a holiday meal, or a weeknight dessert for an unexpected treat. That's what it's all about.
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