When I was young, we lived in a village and had a garden full of fruit trees – cherries, apples, plums and pears. My Grandma would preserve most of the fruit into jars (fruit compotes) so that we can enjoy them throughout the year and they would often be a side dish to main meals that consisted of meat and potatoes, for example roasted chicken legs or roasted pork shoulder. Oh how much I loved it!

When we had an abundance of fresh apples, we would have apple strudels. Later in my teenage years, my mum would make apple strudels too, using puff pastry, and this is when I really started my love for strudels. My sister and I would polish a whole tray of them in a day if unguarded, we just loved them!

This Strudel recipe uses a homemade pastry and is everything you need – it is soft inside and biscuit like on the outside. I filled my rolled strudel with apples (of course!) and my mini ones with chocolate spread.

Ingredients for the dough:

• 300g plain flour

• 2tsp baking powder

• 100g icing sugar

• 1tbsp vanilla sugar (I keep vanilla pod in a pot of caster sugar), or a drop of vanilla extract

• 125g unsalted butter, softened

• 1 egg

• 1tsp lemon extract

• 4-5 tbsp milk

For the filling:

• Apples (the amount depends on how big your apples are, so use as many as you think will fit in 2-3 strudels), grated

• 2 tsp of cinnamon

• about 50g caster sugar (depends on how sweet your apple are)

• handful of raisins

• chopped pecan nuts

• Chocolate spread (optional)

• 1 egg for eggwash

Method:

1. To make the dough, sift through the flour and baking powder and then add all the other ingredients. Mix until all the butter is incorporated, and the dough is formed. It will be quite sticky. Wrap it in a cling film and put it in the fridge to firm up for about 1,5 – 2 hours.

2. When it’s almost ready to come out, make the filling by mixing all the ingredients in a bowl. 

Divide the dough into 3 parts and roll out on a floured surface into a rectangle. Take some of the mixture, squeeze out the liquid and spread over the rolled-out dough. Repeat until you are happy with the amount. Gently roll it up, starting from your side going upwards, rolling it bit by bit. Don’t worry if it tears a bit. Transfer onto a baking tray lined with baking paper.

3. Repeat with the rest of the dough or use slightly melted chocolate spread (microwave for about 20 seconds) and roll as with the apple strudels but cut them up into triangles and transfer onto the tray.

4. Bake at 180C for about 25-30 minutes.