Mom's Homemade Apple Strudel

My dad loves apple strudel and lucky for him my mom makes one of the best ones out there. We make it every fall, usually with apples from my cousins tree. Here's the recipe we use:

Mom's Apple Strudel

3 apples, cut into 1/2 inch cubes (approximately)

1 teaspoon cinnamon

Juice from 1/2 a lemon

1/2 cup raisins

1/2 cup sugar 

5 sheet phyllo dough

1/2 stick butter, melted

1/3 cup sugar plus 1 tablespoon cinnamon for sprinkling

1/4 cup panko bread crumbs

1/4 cup chopped walnuts

Vanilla ice cream (optional)

1. Preheat oven to 350 F. Combine apples, cinnamon, lemon juice, raisins, and 1/2 cup sugar in a large bowl. Cover with a damp paper towel.

2. Prepare phyllo for use as per package instructions. Keep dough not being used moist by wrapping it in a damp kitchen cloth (we used the excess cloth from the work station to keep the dough moist). On parchment paper or a thin, damp towel, lay down the first sheet of phyllo dough. Brush butter across the entire top of the sheet and top with 1 tablespoon each of chopped walnuts, panko, and cinnamon sugar. Lay the next sheet of phyllo dough on top of it and repeat until all 5 sheets of phyllo have been used.

3. After all 5 sheets have been laid down and buttered, drain off any extra juices from the apple mixture. Pour the apple mixture into the center of the phyllo rectangle leaving two inches of free space on the shorter sides of the dough and about 3-4 inches of space on the long sides.

4. Fold up the 2 inch short sides of the phyllo dough to keep the mixture within the rectangle. Fold over the long sides of the rectangle next, making sure to overlap all edges of the dough.

5. Seal the edges and ends with the melted butter, and place, seam side down, onto a parchment lined baking sheet. Brush top of strudel with melted butter and sprinkle with remaining cinnamon sugar. Place onto a parchment lined baking sheet and bake for 30 minutes, or until top of strudel is flaky and slightly browned.

6. Allow strudel to cool slightly then slice and serve while still warm.

Enjoy!

Mary Beth's Apple Cobbler

This weekend we went to a local apple festival near the farm. In addition to selling apples they have various baked goods, home cooked Polish food (pierogi and haluski), candy, and my personal favorite, chocolate covered caramel apples. We also picked up two bottles of Razz's hickory syrup which tastes amazing on anything from grilled peaches to sausage and squash. Hickory syrup is similar to maple syrup but with a smokier, woodsier taste. I've never seen hickory syrup anywhere other than from this vendor, at this festival, and we finished ours up so quickly last year I knew I had to grab more. The website also has a ton of recipes you can find here.

After spending the day eating all the different treats the festival had to offer, we picked out a bag of Honeycrisp apples, which are my favorite (not including ones covered in chocolate and caramel), and headed home to bake some more treats.

Since Honeycrisp apples are too good to eat any other way than fresh, we used apples that we picked from my cousins orchard the day before. They have a few trees filled with apples and pears that are great for baking as well as eating fresh. Since everyone I know loves apple cobbler, that's what we decided to bake. A recipe using the pears will be posted later this week.

I was lucky and had my cousins as baking assistants,

they peeled almost all the pears and apples for me!

Mary Beth's Apple Cobbler
This recipe is from my future mother in law, I just add a little bit of nutmeg since I love it and some oatmeal for extra texture.

7 large apples
1 1/4 cups flour
1/4 cup instant oatmeal
1/2 cup sugar
3/4 cup packed brown sugar
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1 1/2 sticks of cold butter, cubed

1. Preheat oven to 400 F. Peel and slice apples into bite size chunks and place into a buttered rectangular baking pan. (I doubled the recipe when I made it, so I used two baking pans)

2. In a separate bowl mix together the dry ingredients until well combined. With a pastry blender (or a large fork if you don't have one handy) combine the cubed butter with the dry ingredients until only small pieces of butter remain. Spread mixture thickly on top of the apples.

3. Bake cobbler for 45 minutes or until apples are soft and cobbler topping is golden brown and crunchy.

I served mine with homemade ice cream, either pumpkin spice, vanilla bean, or both. The cobbler is amazing right out of the oven, the heat from the cobbler starts thawing the ice cream and makes things all melty and wonderful.

Hope you enjoyed, let me know if you have any questions!