Strudel

Strudel

An apple strudel
Origin
Place of origin	Austria
Details
Type	Pastry
Main ingredient(s)	Puff pastry

Not to be confused with Nut roll.

A strudel (/ˈstruːdəl/, German: [ˈʃtʁuːdəl]) is a type of layered pastry with a — most often sweet — filling inside, often served with cream. It became well known and gained popularity in the 18th century through the Habsburg Empire.

Strudel is most often associated with Austrian cuisine but is also a traditional pastry in the whole area formerly belonging to the Austro-Hungarian empire.

The oldest Strudel recipe (a Millirahmstrudel) is from 1696, a handwritten recipe at the Viennese City Library, Wiener Stadtbibliothek. The pastry has its origins in the similar Near Eastern pastries (see baklava and Turkish cuisine).

Etymology

Strudel is a loanword in English from German. The word itself derives from the German word Strudel, which in Middle High German literally means "whirlpool" or "eddy".

In Hungary it is known as rétes, in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia and Serbia as štrudla or savijača, in Slovenia as štrudelj or zavitek, in the Czech Republic as závin or štrúdl, in Romania as ștrudel, and in Slovakia as štrúdľa or závin.

The pastry

The best-known kinds of strudel are Apfelstrudel (German for apple strudel) and Topfenstrudel (with sweet soft quark cheese, in German Topfen cheese), followed by the Millirahmstrudel (Milk-cream strudel, Milchrahmstrudel). In Slovenia, cottage cheese is used instead of quark. Other strudel types include sour cherry (Weichselstrudel), sweet cherry, nut filled (Nussstrudel), Apricot Strudel, Plum Strudel and poppy seed strudel (Mohnstrudel) or raisins. There are also savoury strudels incorporating spinach, cabbage, pumpkin, and sauerkraut, and versions containing meat fillings like the (Lungenstrudel) or (Fleischstrudel).

Traditional Austrian Strudel pastry is different from strudels served in other parts of the world that are often made from puff pastry. The traditional Strudel pastry dough is very elastic. It is made from flour with a high gluten content, egg, water, and butter with no sugar added. The dough is worked vigorously, rested, and then rolled out and stretched by hand very thinly with the help of a clean linen tea towel or kitchen paper. Pertaining to anecdotes, purists say, it should be so thin that a newspaper can be read through it. A legend has it that the Austrian Emperor's perfectionist cook decreed that it should be possible to read a love letter through it. The thin dough is still laid out on a tea towel, and the filling is spread on it. The dough with the filling on top is rolled up carefully with the help of the tea towel and baked in the oven.

External links

• Friederich Kunz: Die Strudelfamilie - eine Wiener Mehlspeisendynastie mit orientalisch-europäischem Stammbaum, in "backwaren aktuell", 2/11