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.
I have a large piece of natural linen that until this week had been sitting around waiting for me to cut it into pieces for lining proofing baskets, or maybe sew a pair of summer pants. Not any more. Thanks to this month’s Daring Bakers strudel challenge, this linen is now designated as my Official Strudel-Pulling-and-Rolling Cloth.
Because I’m sure I’ll be making strudel again. Who knew gluten without yeast could be this fun, this easy, and this good?
The only problem with the cloth is the color; it exactly camouflages the strudel dough, making it impossible for me to show off my tissue-thin sheet. See what I mean?
OK, so I forgot to photograph it until I got to this point:
There’s no camouflaging with Dayglo-red rhubarb.
Rhubarb is my favorite spring fruit (vegetable, really), so it was worth having my strudel come out the color of fake crab on a cheap buffet. My adaptation of Rick Rodgers’ apple filling (see Courtney or Linda for both filling and dough recipes) went like this:
Omit raisins and rum (I know…). Increase cinnamon to 1/2 teaspoon. Increase sugar to one cup (I know, again…). Use two cups of cherry-pecan bread crumbs. Substitute six cups of diced rhubarb for apples.
How did it taste? Well, to give you an idea, my husband gave his piece topped with ginger gelato his highest compliment: “That’s good stuff.”
Thanks to Linda and Courtney for a fantastic challenge, and to our Daring Leaders Lis and Ivonne for all they do to keep us rolling. And as usual, a world of Daring Bakers strudels of all colors is just a click away.
Mmmmm, this looks amazing! YUM. 🙂 I love the color–I precooked the rhubarb for my filling, which made it not so pretty. Yours is gorgeous!
Beautiful, Susan! I love the huge amount of rhubarb in the filling and I can’t believe the thinness of the crust. I am with your husband, this is good stuff!
You rocked this one, just like I knew you would! Awesome job and yes, it is REALLY see-thru. Funny how you fear dough w/o yeast and I fear dough w/ yeast. You are my hero, hon. Beautiful strudel. xxoo
Fantastich!
YUM.
I love rhubarb. I made a rhubarb strudel too. Then ended up eating it all myself, as the hubby, who’d never had rhubarb before, ended up not liking it.
Hopefully, my parents still have rhubarb growing back home, so I can make another this August using homegrown rhubarb.}:P
Well done! I love rhubarb!! 🙂
Oh my gosh, the linen *is* like camouflage! I love the idea of using rhubarb and can’t wait until we can harvest our rhubarb next year. This was a fun dough to play with, wasn’t it? Very therapeutic to slap dough around, hee hee.
Oh man. I love rhubarb too. I’m stunned by your strudel sheet!
This looks fabulous! I so wish I had seen the dough steps, though, cause strudel dough scares the begeebies out of me! Was it really easy? Rhubarb Strudel with cherry-pecan bread crumbs? Wow!
Your strudel looks wonderful! I love your choice of filling! Very well done!
Cheers,
Rosa
Oh, your strudel dough is really just one gluten molecule thick. 🙂
I believe you Susan. When I saw the photo, that was exactly what I thought, and that’s must be your strudel dough. And looking at your Strudel photo, how that perfect the layers are, wow I even more convinced. Perfect!
xoxo,
elra
Oh, I so miss DB (and eating the results.) This looks lovely. Its on my list for August.
O my… look at that super thin dough, but I guess without a doubt you’re the dough expert, no wonder the strudel looks flaky delicious:)
That is very beautiful!
Gorgeous! And I love the “camo” shot of linen on the table 😉 I had to doubletake.
I will have to roll my own…
:?{
Your strudel filling is interesting. And to think that till a month back, I thought strudel was made only with apple! 😀
Beautiful thin flakey pastry, just perfect layers! A gorgeous delicious strudel!
Great job on this month’s challenge!
I love the line that says: I forgot to take pics 😀 LOL!
So flakey, so delicious looking AND sounding (i am a rhubarb fan, BIGTIME); kudos to you, Susan!
You got it so thin and perfect! I love rhubarb, great choice.
What a beautiful job, Susan! You can’t go wrong with rhubarb!
Wow, your dough is really thin and I love your filling!
This looks beautiful, and I love rhubarb!
it’s really good dough isn’t it?
and rhubarb really deserves extra sugar!
Susan, that’s one good looking strudel. Glad you decided to make it despite the lack of yeast ;o)
My goodness, is all I can say. (It’s the shared Y chromosome.) Wow.
your final pic says how thin you dough had been rolled out…great filling and even greater looking strudel!
Your dough is phenomenal! Nice work.
Now those are the bread crumbs to beat all!!!
It looks gorgeous Susan.
You sound as surprised as I did at how well this worked.
Oh and yes the rhubarb is absolutely a top notch choice but I sort of think you usually are.
ooooo those bread crumbs (I used panko)
What a beautiful job, Susan! You can’t go wrong with rhubarb!
If you keep this up, I’m going to have to try rhubarb! Every time I mention it my husband wrinkles his nose though!
Hmm. More for me…
Your strudel looks wonderful! I love the idea of using interesting bread crumbs. I’ll have to try that next time.
Don’t worry about your camouflage picture, actually, this is pretty impressive. Even my grand-aunt, who was a gnarly dyed-in-the-wool bavarian girl and cosidered the one and only proper ‘apfelstrudel’ recipe her exclusive birthright would have approved that thin a dough. Kudos!
I used a rhubarb filling too but my strudel didn’t look half as good as yours Susan. You really are a incredibly skilled baker 🙂