appstru

Submitted by: Kelly Panoff
October 2001

Kelly's Apple Strudel (with or without dried cranberries)

Ingredients:
1 package of Pepperidge Farm puff pastry dough, at room temp
6-7 med sized apples, golden delicious are good to use, peeled, cored and quartered.
4 TBS all purpose flour
An additional 1/4 C flour for rolling purposes
1 1/2 tsp Pampered Chef Cinnamon Plus (or regular cinnamon with 1/4 tsp nutmeg)
1/4 granulated sugar
Additionally 2-3 TBS sugar for topping
1 beaten egg, in a bowl for glazing
** optional whole vanilla bean, with seeds scraped out into apple mixture

Directions:
Oven at 350 degrees, roll out both sheets of pastry, with minimal use of extra flour to approximately 14 inches by 11 inches, in a rectangle. Lay out onto a baking sheet, covered with either a piece of parchment paper, or a Silpat mat (found at most kitchen/home stores). Brush off excess flour with a pastry brush. Mix in a large bowl, apples, flour, sugar, and cinnamon. Make sure apples are coated, and there is no excess dry mix in bottom of your bowl. You may also add a bag of "crasins" (dried cranberries) to apple mix. I made one of each for Vivian's. Mound apple mixture into the center part of the rolled out pastry, evening out any large lumps. When doing this, visually divide the dough into thirds, with the middle third holding the fruit. With a sharp knife, make diagonal parallel cuts into dough, making sure you have equal amounts on each side. Leaving a larger piece of dough on each end, starting on one end, fold end up first, next folding by overlapping each strip of dough into the middle of the fruit, so it looks almost braided. Fold last end in, to complete assembly. Brush your beaten egg onto surface of the pastry, glazing all top surface area, and sprinkle sugar onto top egg glazed area.

Bake for approximately 40 minutes, until golden on top, and apples, when poked with a knife, are soft. Cool, slice and serve room temp, or re-warm.