Milchrahmstrudel à la Sacher (Milk and Curd Cheese Strudel)

Servings: 5

Ingredients:

For the dough:

• 250 g  (2 ¼ cups) flour (fine)
• 1 pinch salt
• 1 tbsp oil
• 2 tbsps butter (melted for daubing)
• 125 ml (0,2 pt) water (lukewarm)
• 2 egg yolks (for daubing)
• icing sugar (for dusting)
• oil
• flour (for the work surface)
• butter (for daubing)

Filling:

• 8 toasts (without crust)
• 125 ml (0,2 pt) milk
• 1 pod vanilla (pulp)
• 60 g (1/4 cup) butter
• 60 g (1/4 cup) icing sugar
• 1 cooking spoon vanilla sugar
• 1/2 lemon (rind, grated)
• 3 egg yolks
• 250 g (1 cup) curd cheese (20% fat)
• 150 g (2/3 cup) sour cream
• 3 egg whites
• 1 tbsp sugar
• 40 g (3/8 cup) raisins (soaked in rum)
• 1 handful almond splinters (roasted)

Sauce:

• 500 ml (0,9 pt) milk
• 2 tbsps sugar
• 1 egg

Here is your recipe for this Viennese delicacy:

For the pastry, heap some flour onto a work surface and knead the pastry ingredients into a smooth, elastic dough. Shape into a ball and place in a soup bowl dribbled with oil. Cover, and refrigerate, preferably over night. On a lightly floured surface, roll out the pastry dough into a square with a rolling pin. Pull until very thin. To do this, make sure your hands are covered in flour, place one hand under the dough and use the other hand to carefully pull the dough out from the center. The dough should become so thin that it's almost transparent.

For the filling, heat up the milk with the vanilla pulp. Cut the toast into small cubes and pour over the vanilla milk. Beat the butter, icing sugar, vanilla sugar, lemon rind and egg yolks until creamy. Add the curd cheese and sour cream. Beat the egg whites until stiff, gradually sprinkling in the sugar. Fold the soaked bread into the egg yolk mixture. Finally, loosely fold in the egg whites. Brush the pastry dough with butter and sprinkle over the almond splinters. Spread the filling mixture over about 2/3 of the pastry and sprinkle the raisins evenly over the top.

Roll into a strudel. Place the strudel on a greased baking tray and brush with beaten egg yolk. For the sauce, whisk together all the ingredients and pour about a third of it over the strudel. Bake in a preheated oven at 180 °C for 40-50 minutes. While it's baking, regularly pour over the milk mixture and brush with melted butter. Slice to serve and dust with icing sugar.

Enjoy with: Sweet wine

More recipes:  www.ichkoche.at/Viennese-Cuisine/

The New Sacher Cookbook: www.ichlese.at/article/1848