Tuesday, April 6, 2010

Strudel

Dough:
1 ½ sticks margarine, melted
2 egg yolks
1 cup warm milk
3 cups flour

Combine margarine and milk; beat in egg yolks; dump in flour. Mix to form dough; chill overnight in sealed container (dough is thin, but it will thicken). Divide dough into fourths; roll in rectangles as thinly as you can onto clean cuptowels. Onto each rectangle, layer:

crushed cornflakes to cover dough*
½ cup coconut
½ chopped cup pecans
½ cup raisins
½ cup sugar
sprinkling of cinnamon
1 cup raw, thinly sliced apples or pears

Leave about ½” around edge of dough without any topping, so you can seal the edges. Roll up dough, place on buttered foil lined cookie sheet; bake at 350 degrees for 30 minutes, or until top browns.

Note from Nola:
*This recipe was passed down to me from my mother Elizabeth “Betty” Jarolimek Anthony; her mother Rosie Kouba Jarolimek passed it to her before that. It is Grandma Rosie’s “authentic” Czechoslovakian recipe, but I have no explanation as to the cornflakes being added. I don’t know if they had cornflakes 100 years ago, or if my grandmother substituted them for some other ingredient.

The dough is not thick at all, and you will swear it will not be thick enough to roll out, but it is. The “old timers” would roll it out onto a clean cotton cuptowel, rolled so thin you could see through it. The cuptowel underneath helped make it easier to roll without tearing when you had all the toppings added.