Mix 1 pint of flour with ½ cup of water, 4 ounces of butter, 3 eggs and a pinch of salt to a stiff dough; then roll out as thin as possible. Pour over some melted butter; cover with chopped apples and raisins. Sprinkle with sugar and cinnamon. Make a large roll; bake in a buttered baking-pan with flakes of butter on top until brown.
The instructions are compressed even by 1900s standards: no oven temperature, no time, no quantity of apples. Here is what the gaps mean in practice.
- The hinge: rest the doughA stiff flour-and-egg dough will not stretch thin straight off the board. Knead it until smooth and elastic, then cover and let it rest at room temperature for 30 to 45 minutes. The gluten relaxes and the sheet will pull without tearing; skip this and it will spring back and split every time.
- A pint of flourDry goods were measured by volume, so a pint here means 2 cups, roughly 8 to 9 ounces. The dough should be firm but not dry — hold back a spoonful of the water if the eggs are large.
- Oven and timeNone is given. Bake at 375°F for 40 to 50 minutes, until the pastry is deep brown and any escaping juice has caramelised at the edges of the pan.
- How much appleFor this quantity of dough, 2 lb of tart apples (Granny Smith, Bramley) peeled and chopped small, with about ½ cup raisins, ⅓ cup sugar and a teaspoon of cinnamon. Chopped rather than sliced, as written, gives a denser filling that holds together when cut.
- The missing breadcrumbsViennese practice scatters a layer of butter-fried breadcrumbs over the dough before the fruit. The original omits it, and without it the apple juice soaks straight into the pastry. A cup of crumbs browned in butter is the fix.
- Rolling and sealingRoll from the long side over a floured cloth, keeping the roll fairly tight, and pinch the ends closed so the juice stays in. Curve it into a horseshoe if it is too long for the pan.
- Butter, generouslyThe melted butter brushed between dough and filling and the flakes on top help the rolled layers separate rather than fuse; brushing again once or twice during baking will keep the top from drying.
- Yield and servingOne roll, 8 to 10 slices. Serve warm, dusted with powdered sugar, with cream or vanilla sauce.
Strudel is simply German for whirlpool or eddy, a description of the spiral you see in a cut slice. The stretched-dough technique is generally traced east rather than west — to the layered doughs of the Ottoman kitchen, which are usually said to have reached Hungary and then Vienna, where apple strudel became one of the emblematic coffee-house pastries by the nineteenth century. This version is a compromise for the American home cook: Viennese Strudelteig is typically flour, water, a little oil and salt, with at most a single egg, pulled over a floured cloth until it is nearly transparent, whereas the egg-and-butter dough here is sturdier, more forgiving, and closer to a rich pastry.