Strudel di Mele Tirolese — South Tyrolean Apple Strudel

South Tyrol, Trentino-Alto Adige — the region where Austria and Italy meet. Strudel came to the South Tyrol via the Austrian Empire's control of the area from 1814-1919. The apple variety of the Adige Valley (apple is the principal fruit crop of the region) is the defining filling ingredient.

Apple strudel in the South Tyrol is both the defining pastry of the Austrian-influenced north and a dish with technical requirements quite different from commercial versions: the strudel dough must be stretched by hand to near-transparency over a cloth-covered table, filled with a spiced apple-raisin mixture, rolled, and baked until the dough is crisp and shatteringly thin in places but tender at the fold. It is not a shortcut dessert — the hand-stretching of the dough is the technique.

The hand-stretched strudel dough bakes into alternating crisp and tender layers — shatteringly thin where it was stretched thinnest, slightly thicker and softer where it overlapped. The apple filling, spiced with cinnamon and brightened with lemon, cooks to a yielding sweetness inside. The contrast between crisp pastry and tender filling is the pleasure.