Cherry Strudel

One weekend this fall, I’ll try a real Hungarian apple strudel but for now I’ll take the easy route and use some phyllo dough for a quick strudel from the April/May 2012 Vegetarian Times magazine (p.66).

Phyllo dough isn’t exactly easy to work with as it dries out quickly and gets brittle, but it still saves time from the old-fashioned way of stretching dough. This recipe was a bit confusing and by the picture it looks like they used canned cherries and about half the amount the recipe calls for, so I’m modifying to the method I used.


Austrian Sour Cherry Strudel
1/4 C breadcrumbs
1/2 C finely ground almonds
½ C brown sugar
2-3 cups pitted, chopped fresh cherries (or 2 cans water-packed cherries, drained)
¼ tsp. almond extract, optional
6 sheets frozen phyllo dough, thawed
4 T butter or vegan margarine, melted
Preheat oven to 400. Coat parchment-lined baking sheet with cooking spray. Stir together breadcrumbs, almonds, and sugar in bowl. Combine 3/4 cup breadcrumb mixture and cherries in separate bowl. Add almond extract (if using), and set aside.
Unroll defrosted phyllo. Place 1 phyllo sheet on the parchment, brush with butter, and sprinkle with 2 tablespoons breadcrumb mixture. Top with second phyllo sheet and repeat layering with butter, breadcrumb mixture, and phyllo sheets, leaving last phyllo sheet bare. Roll up remaining phyllo and wrap it back up before it dries.

Brush 1-inch border of butter around edges of phyllo stack. Spread cherry mixture in center of phyllo stack inside margarine borders. Fold one of the short edges of phyllo stack over filling. Pick up the parchment paper on the same side and use it to help carefully roll phyllo around filling into large log. Move the parchment and log seam-side down to the baking sheet. Brush strudel all over with remaining butter, and sprinkle top with remaining breadcrumb mixture. Bake 20 minutes, or until strudel is golden-brown. Cool at least 10 minutes before serving.