Easy apple strudel

Easy apple strudel – also known as holiday baking at its simplest and most delicious.

You’ll need:

• 1 sheet of puff pastry
• 2 large apples (granny smith or macintosh work well depending on how tart you prefer them)
• 3 tablespoons golden raisins
• 2 tablespoons slivered almonds
• 1 tsp vanilla bean paste
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• 1 tsp ground cloves
• 1 tsp brown sugar + another 1 tsp for sprinkling
• 1 tsp flour + more for rolling out dough
• 1 egg + 1 tsp water for eggwash

1. Preheat oven to 375F (190C).

2. Slice apple thinly and mix with sugar+cinnamon+cloves+vanilla+flour (in place of cornstarch to thicken the fruit juices and keep dough from getting too ‘wet’). Mix in raisins and almonds.

I like a lot of apples in the filling.

3. Roll out pastry* (on a floured surface) to as thin as you can get it (puff pastry is pretty thick, by dough standards, since it has so many layers in it; if you can get it to about 1/6 inch that’s good) so that you have a nice rectangular, pliant piece of dough that you can still roll up easily. Remember, it has to hold a lot of filling!

4. Spread your apple filling on one short side of the dough, leaving about a 1 inch border. Roll up tightly, with the seam facing down, and seal on the sides – use eggwash to help seal the edges as well as brush all over the dough.

5. Sprinkle with remaining sugar and cut three slits in the top of the dough.

6. Bake for about 30 minutes until golden, puffy, and baked through on the sides. Best served warm

*In the less ‘easy’, classic strudel version, you would pull the strudel dough instead of rolling it out.