- Easy Apple Strudel

Dear Fans of Hounds Who Cook,

I, Beltashazzar, the cat, have spent the evening communing with apples. The peel, the core with stem and seeds, the flesh. The occasional worm. A cat likes to spend time with a subject to find the inspiration of what it will be become. (The apple, not the cat.) And I, Beltashazzar, with 8 cups of tender white apple chunks at my side have decided that these nutritious morsels will become: Strudel.

It's an easy strudel. Nothing like the elaborate strudels from the old country. Those were tender pastries of dough rolled and spread with butter and folded and rolled again, and again - like croissant dough but sweet - and filled with buttery apple-cinnamon filling. The person, Me, tells the tale of her early days of mastering such efforts. She never really found it worth all the work, she admits. So this recipe, adapted from her dear friend Barbara in Colorado (and then Tennessee) has the glory of the strudel but the ease of pie. Consider featuring your own apples in this morning or teatime treat.

Easy Apple Strudel
2 cups flour
3/4 cup butter
1 teaspoon salt
2 eggs, divided
4 tablespoons water
4 tablespoons vodka (indeed)
2 cups apple
stevia equivalent for 1 cup sugar
3/4 tablespoons tapioca
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg
pinch of mace, if desired

Cut the butter into the flour and salt as for pie crust. (I use a mini food chopper for this to minimize flour dust on the paws - put the flour and chunks of butter into the chopper and pulse til the butter is evenly distributed into tiny bits within the flour.)

Separate the eggs and set the whites aside. Whisk the yolks with the water and vodka. (This is an idea we all read about online from Cooks Illustrated. The alcohol in the vodka evaporates in the oven and leaves you with the flakiest of crust. I'm a tee-totaling cat myself, but the vodka is also useful to keep the dogs occupied and out of your way in the kitchen. Me walked through earlier and wondered why the dogs were so tired, snoring and drooling with their tongues hanging out. I didn't say a word.) Stir the water mixture in to the flour mixture lightly with a fork until it all clings together. Divide in two, wrap tightly, and refrigerate briefly - such as 30 minutes while you peel and chop your apples.

Roll out dough on a lightly floured surface to fit a baking pan with sides. Ours is 14x12-inches, we think. Fit the dough into the pan, stretching up the sides.

Mix powdered stevia with tapioca and cinnamon. Toss with chopped apple. Distribute evenly across the thin fragile pastry in the pan.

Roll out the other ball of dough to cover the pan. Lay over the apples and crimp the sides tightly in a becoming manner. Create short cat claw slashes in the top crust with a sharp knife (or your claws) in a clever pattern or prick all over with a fork.

Whisk the egg whites and brush over the top crust, taking care to brush the nicely crimped and fluted edges as well. Bake at 375F for 40 minutes.

While baking, mix the powdered sugar, vanilla, and evaporated milk for the icing. (If you don't have a can of evaporated milk already open, don't open one for this. Ordinary milk or cream will do. But the evaporated milk has a nice effect.)

Remove from oven and immediately frost with icing. Return to oven for 3 minutes, until icing bubbles.

Remove from oven, cool, and cut into squares to serve.

Tips from Beltashazzar: In the house of Hounds, we like to use arrowroot as our thickening agent rather than cornstarch. Tapioca flour is good too, when we have it on hand. We also exaggerate the cinnamon in any baked good because of its healthful properties. You really can't get enough. We also only use freshly grated nutmeg, or we skip it. Once we happened upon a nutmeg grater, we considered the preground and the freshly grated nuts two very different spices with no use whatsoever for the former. We also tend to use mace wherever we use cinnamon. It all started with an oatmeal cookie recipe that called for mace and our person Me was never the same. It was a new spice to her and some would say she' s overused it ever since. It has become a signature for Me. Everyone asks about it. We're not sure if they ask because they like it or because they can't identify it. They always say it's good. We have grown to love it liek our Me. Often, in order of quantity, we would add cinnamon, mace and nutmeg. In this instance, the mace is less than the nutmeg for just a subtle little undertone of surprise.

Tips from Guthrie: My kit Beltashazzar has done an exemplary job with this pastry. When our Me rises in the morning to homemade apple strudel from her boys she is sure to include us in her delight. We are the kind of dogs in favor of doing work ahead. So if you'd like to chop your apples the night before while you watch reruns of Monk on the USA Network website, that would be fine. You can also mix up the dough the night before. Then, in the morning it's just a little rollery and you have your strudel baking while the coffee's brewing.

Tips from Elias: This keeps surprisingly well, if by some instance, such as dogs being away for the day, it is not eaten all in one sitting. Me has reported eating it as many as four days later with only a bit of a loss of flavor in that time. We don't even think she refrigerates it. Her elder, the mother, thinks she should refrigerate a lot more than she does. Me did not grow up in the days without refrigeration so she is very casual about the convenience. She doesn't refrigerate just- picked rasPberries either until the third day.