🎵Hey baby, I hear the blues are callin' 🎵
🎵 Tossed salads and scrambled eggs 🎵
[In French]Hans Landa- "Have you tried the strudel here?"
[In French]Shosanna Dreyfus- "No, no."
HL- "It's not so terrible."
HL- "After you."
HL- "Verdict?"
HL- "Like I said, not so terrible."
[In English]Hey what's up guys? Welcome back to Binging with Babish
Where this week we are recreating the strudel from 'Inglorious Basterds'.
Now I've never made strudel
so this is going to be a learning experience for both of us.
We're starting off with a cup and a half of bread flour
We need bread flour because we want a lot of gluten.
We're gonna make a little well in the center
and then dump in four tablespoons of vegetable oil
two egg whites
a quarter teaspoon of salt
and a half tablespoon of lemon juice.
Give this a little mix with your hands
until it just barely comes together
and then we're going to add a quarter cup of warm water
about 110 degrees (F) [43.3 C]
We're then going to
mix until it forms a semi-cohesive dough
if it's a little too sticky, add some flour.
But we want a really sticky, soft, pliable dough.
Now, we're going to flour our worktop,
and just knead the hell out of this.
And when I say 'knead,'
I mean
KNEAD
We're gonna knead it,
and we're gonna pound it against the table.
All this is to build up a strong gluten network.
Because we're gonna be stretching this out
thinner than a sheet of paper.
So smack it against the table,
take out all your frustrations on it,
until you get a smooth, supple dough
that we're going to place in an oiled bowl.
and let rest for about 30 minutes.
In the meantime, we're going to make our apple filling.
Peel 4 good baking apples.
When I say 'baking apples' usually green apples,
like Granny Smith. These are apples that retain their shape with cooking.
and that's what we're after.
We want to chop those very fine, nice and thin.
Because we want them to cook as quickly as possible.
We're going to season these apples a solid 30 minutes
before putting them in the strudel.
So they weep a lot of their moisture.
So put them in a large bowl with half a cup of sugar,
a tablespoon of cinnamon,
half a cup of raisins,
and the zest of one lemon.
You'll also want to throw some lemon juice in there, too.
If you want to prevent the apples from turning brown.
Then, we're gonna add some flour. This is gonna help soak up some of the moisture.
Taste for seasoning, and then it's time for the scariest part of the day:
Stretching out the dough.
For this, we're going to need a large tablecloth
that we are going to liberally dust with flour.
Especially towards the center, because that's going to be the stickiest part.
Plop down our dough, dust our rolling pin, and start rolling it out.
Until it's a large circle, maybe about 18-24 inches (just around 45.72-60.96 cm) wide.
Then, we're going to pick it up and start stretching it like a pizza pie.
But a much larger, more fragile, pizza pie.
Dust your knuckles with flour. And, very gently, rotate the dough using your fists
in a motion like this until you get it as large as you possibly can without tearing.
Then place it back down and slowly tug at the edges until it is thin enough
that you can see pattern of the tablecloth through the dough.
Then, we're going to slice off the rough edges,
and start drizzling the whole thing down
with delicious melted butter.
The dough's very fragile at this point. So start by drizzling, and then very, very gently
brush the entire thing down, making sure that every square inch is soaked in butter.
This is essential for creating those flaky layers that we're after.
Then, we're going to sprinkle the entire surface with chopped walnuts and hazelnuts.
And place a row of our spiced apples at one end of the dough.
Then, using the tablecloth, we're going to roll the dough up on itself.
Tuck in the edges, brush the top down with butter. Rinse, and repeat.
You know you're dealing with an old-school recipe when one of the most important pieces of kitchen equipment
you need is a tablecloth.
I might not be German, but I think that I've earned the honorary title of, 'Oma.'
So now that our roll is all... rolled up, we're going to
seal the edges and place on a parchment-lined baking sheet.
Preheat our oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit,
And get ready to brush this thing down with a beaten egg.
Make sure it's really super well-coated with the egg.
We want a nice brown crust.
It's gonna bake for about an hour. And every ten or so minutes, we're gonna want to take it out,
whenever it looks dry, and give it a good basting with melted butter.
Once the crust is browned to your satisfaction,
we're going to turn it out onto a wire rack to cool for at least another hour,
before hacking ourselves off a tubular piece of pastry.
This guy turned out a little bit too airy on the inside,
so next time I would recommend rolling tighter and with more layers.
Give it a good dusting of powdered sugar, and let's dig in
[In French]HL- "Wait for the cream."
[In English]Oh, yeah. Sorry.
So we're gonna make some whipped cream, which is simple enough.
We're gonna start with a cup of heavy cream,
add maybe a tablespoon, tablespoon and a half of sugar,
give it a good hwhip.
I had a summer job at a chocolate cafe when I was 14, so,
don't be surprised if my whipped cream comes out...
perfect.
And to make it all fancy, like in the movie,
we're going to pipe it using a pastry bag
Making a nice little mountain of cream
that we're then going to spoon on top of our beautiful pastry
and finally take a big, flaky bite.
Now this turned out really, really, REALLY good.
I highly recommend it as a centerpiece for your next dinner party
or..
terrifying Nazi brunch.