Ricotta strudel

The strudel is a traditional Austrian dessert: a very thin pastry filled with apples and spices. Like every successful recipe it has tons of different alternatives both for the pastry and for the filling. Today I’m sharing with you a very creamy and delicate strudel, with ricotta cheese & raisins filling and a “no butter” pastry, very light and not greasy at all.

The strudel is perfect if served warm with a nice glass of milk 🙂

Here you are the ingredients for a long strudel (6/8 servings):

And that’s how to proceed:

– verse the dried raisins in a cup filled with warm water. set it apart.

– on a flat surface (I used a wooden cutting board) place the flour and create a volcano shape. In the central hole add the oil, the egg, a pinch of salt and mix with a fork/spoon slowly adding the flour from the sides to the center.

– slowly add the lukewarm water, a bit at the time.

– keep working with a fork/spoon up until the mix will be easy to knead with your hand

– knead the pastry with one hand, pushing your palm down and than forward, repeating the same movement again and again. It will take 4/5 minutes for the mix to get elastic, shiny and yellow.

– wrap the pastry dough in some plastic paper and place it in the refrigerator for 30 min.

– using two bowls divide the egg yolks form the whites. Add a pinch of salt to the withes and using an electric beater whisk them until stiff creating white firm peaks. Set it apart.

– Take the other bowl with the egg yolks and add the yogurt, the ricotta cheese, honey, lemon zest, vanilla extract and coconut oil. Whisk everything in order to obtain a smooth cream. It is very important to drain the ricotta cheese from any liquid. It should be thick and compact. Otherwise the cake filling will be too running and it will be difficult to roll the strudel.

– Slowly add the egg whites. Mix slowly with a spoon.

– Remove the pastry dough from the refrigerator. Place it on a flat surface in between two parchment paper foils. Roll it with a rolling pin in order to obtain a very very thin layer, thin like a paper foil.

– Spread the ricotta mix on the pastry dough. Remove the raisins from the water, they should be very soft right now. Squeeze them to remove extra water and distribute them on top of the ricotta mix.

– Slowly roll the pastry dough from the short side. You will obtain a long cylinder, that’s your strudel. Place it on a parchment paper on a baking sheet.

– brush the strudel with some milk in order to obtain a shiny final look. You can use also an egg yolk in order to have a golden crust. Or sprinkle on top some sugar crystals to have a sparkling crust.

– Bake the strudel in the preheated oven at 400F/180C for 35 minutes. Let it cool down few minutes and enjoy still warm!! You can decorate with some powdered sugar on top, simple and elegant.