Once again I'm hooked on The Great British Bake Off, wherein a few weeks ago there was an episode on pastry and the technical challenge was to make apple strudel. I'd forgotten how difficult this was to make, even Mary Berry one of the judges confessed to buying pre-made filo pastry instead. However, I was so inspired by the challenge I decided to freshen up on my strudel baking. It took me nearly 2 weeks to perfect my pastry but after a lot of tweaking I think I've devised the perfect recipe and technique. You can, of course, use pre-made filo however. Or if ambitious, I suggest you to watch YouTube videos on how to roll strudel pastries.
For the filling I've used produce that is predominantly best during autumn such as cox apples, savoy cabbage and fresh cobnuts. These ingredients also go very well with my personal favorite pork-belly.
So act out your best Swedish chef impersonation and lycklig (Swedish for happy) baking.
Pastry:
350g strong flour
55g salted butter
1 teaspoon caster sugar
1 teaspoon sea salt
1 tablespoon apple cider vinegar
150ml cold water
1 egg
1 teaspoon extra virgin olive oil
1 tablespoon bread crumbs
100g melted butter
Filling:
500g pork belly
200ml apple juice
1 tablespoon sea salt
1 teaspoon cracked black pepper
1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil
4 cox apples
25g butter
1 tablespoon caster sugar
1 savoy cabbage
2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
1 teaspoon sea salt
20 fresh cobnuts
METHOD:
Place pork in baking tray and pour over apple juice and olive oil and season with salt and pepper. Wrap tray with foil and place in oven set at 160ºC for 1 hour 20 minutes. Once cooked, leave to cool then shred the meat.
In a electric mixer with dough hook place flour, cubed butter, sugar and salt, beat together until butter has fully incorporated with flour. Add vinegar, water, egg and beat together for about 20 minutes. Brush a large piece of cling film with olive oil and scrap out pastry dough onto cling film and wrap. Leave pastry to rest for 1 hour.
Peel apples and remove core then slice into 1cm thick pieces, line a baking try with parchment paper and lay out apples. Break butter up into smaller bits place around apples, sprinkle with sugar and place in 160ºC oven with pork for 20 minutes.
Slice cabbage in half and cut out the core, then cut cabbage into 2cm slices. Put a large pot over a high heat and add olive oil, when oil is hot add cabbage and salt, cook for about 7-10 minutes until cabbage has fully wilted. Place a strainer over the sink and pour in the cabbage to remove any excess liquid.
Brush or spray a large clean bench or table with oil, then line the entire surface with parchment paper. Sprinkle working surface and rolling pin with a little flour, unwrap pastry and place in the middle of bench and dust the top with extra flour. Start rolling pastry out as flat as possible working your way round the bench to get an even and flat pastry, make sure there are no tears in the pastry. Dust with a little extra flour as you go, once you've stretched the dough as much as you can by rolling, leave pastry to rest for 10 minutes. Flour your hands and gently slide the knuckle side of your hands under pastry. By spreading your fingers and knuckles ever so gently, stretch the pastry and avoid getting any rips. I try to stretch pastry over the working bench edges, the weight of the pastry hanging over the counter helps to stretch the dough. Once the majority of the pastry is translucent brush gently with half of the melted butter and scatter over bread crumbs. Leave pastry to rest for a further 10 minutes. After resting, trim the thicker edges and make a rectangle shape out of the pastry. Then give pastry one last stretch and trim once more.
Lay cabbage down one end of the pastry and top with apples, shredded pork and shelled cobnuts then season with salt and pepper. Brush the pastry edges with extra butter. Starting at the end of the pastry with filling, gently lift parchment paper and roll pastry down the bench creating a cylinder cigar shape. Holding both ends of the parchment paper, carefully lift the strudel onto a baking tray, trim the parchment paper and tuck the ends under strudel. Brush strudel with butter and place in oven set at 180ºC for 40 minutes. After baking for 20 minutes brush with more butter. Once cooked pastry should be crisp and no soggy bottoms, leave to rest for 15 minutes before slicing into 6-8 pieces.
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