Topfenstrudel (Cream cheese strudel)

The cream cheese strudel is made of delicate strudel pastry, filled with curd cheese or sour cream and originally found its way into Viennese cuisine via Hungary. As legend has it, a Hungarian cook prepared the pastry that flimsy that one could look through and read letters lying beneath. Usually filled with raisins and served with warm custard, it’s a typical Viennese sweet dish which you definitely have to savor!

Serves: 6

Ingredients:

Home-made or ready-made strudel pastry
500g (2 cups) 20%-fat quark (curd), strained
100g (1/2 cup) sour cream
100g (1/2 cup) butter
60g (1/2 cup) powdered (icing) sugar
Pinch of salt
Zest of half an unwaxed lemon
Juice of 1 lemon
Seeds scraped from 1 vanilla pod
6 egg yolks
6 egg whites
60g (1/2 cup) granulated sugar
1 tbsp custard powder
60g raisins, soaked in rum
1 egg for glazing
Butter (melted, to drizzle)

Preparation:

Prepare the pastry. To make the filling, mix the butter, at room temperature, with the powdered sugar, salt, lemon zest and vanilla pod scrapings until the mixture reaches a creamy consistency. Little by little, stir in the egg yolks and custard powder. Add the sour cream, quark, lemon juice and raisins. Whisk the egg whites with the regular sugar until stiff, then gently fold into with the mixture. Roll out the pastry as directed and spread the filling over two thirds of it. Brush the rest of the pastry with melted butter, and roll the strudel (roll the buttered side towards the filled side). Slide the strudel, with pastry seam on the underside, into a deep, buttered baking tray. Brush the strudel with beaten egg. Bake in a preheated oven for 20 minutes at 170°C, then reduce the heat to 120°C and bake for a further ten minutes.

Tip: If possible, make the filling using Austrian Bauerntopfen - quark with reduced water content. The quark and the sour cream should not be too cold, or the filling mixture may become too firm.

Cooking time: 30 minutes

Oven temperature: 170°C, reducing to 120°C