Filo Apple Strudel

 
Apple Strudel.jpg

Hey guys!

I wanted to add more little tidbits of information about vegan cooking so I did a Filo Pastry. I tried to make a nest pie which is where the filo sort of dresses the bowl and it was giving me a strudel vibe, so I switched to a sweet dish and made this to die for crisp, sweet, indulgent treat!

Ingredients

  • White Self Raising Flour

  • Olive Oil

  • Water

  • White Vinegar

  • Granny Smith Apple

  • Brown Sugar

  • Brown Liqueur

  • Sunflower Spread/Butter Alternative

  • Raisins

  • Granola

So the basis is super easy, you start with sieving 2 cups all-purpose flour with 5 tsp of olive oil. You can add salt and 2 tsp of white wine vinegar, then about a cup of warm water. Do not add it all at once, add the water super slowly and you might be left with half a cup, you might be left with a quarter of a cup, it depends on the dough. You keep working it in the bowl until it’s firm, smooth, and looks like the below. Keep it dry and add some further flower to stop it being sticky, but what no one ever tells you is that you have to keep kneading it again and again and again and it jumps into shape.

Once you have the dough you cut it up into half and then into five, so you get like ten even amounts of pastry, you roll them out and add cornstarch to the board and you basically work it until it’s transparent and thin as can be. You then set aside and I got this totally wrong because I thought oh it’ll be fine in my kitchen, it’s NOT gonna work with a hot kitchen they just stick to each other and form a regular pastry. You have to keep the sheets dry, cool and if you want to layer them up for further rolling, which is basically how you get things super thin, you like pile them up with layers of corn starch and roll them all together, heat will stick them together. So don’t! Spread them out across floured boards.

Next, melt a plant-based butter and start assembling an oiled dish. You can be neat like a Baklava, I thought better and began to dress the whole dish like a nest pie which is like a messy Phyllo pie. With melted butter paint on each layer.

I sliced up some peeled apples and raisins and cooked them in three tbsp brown sugar, 1 tbsp brandy, 3 tbsp water. The raisins swell up with gooey richness, the apple softens after about fifteen minutes and if the pan evaporates, keep adding more until the texture is soft. Then, add it to the pie, preheat the oven to about 170 and top with some granola or nuts of your choice.

Cook for about twenty minutes, checking past fifteen and you should see everything go golden and crispy. The base should crisp up if it’s cooked slowly andlow, so test out your oven because it’s flavourful either way.

So here is the video! Let me know how you get on.

 
Joseph Harwood