Nutty Apple & Poppy Seed Strudel

This apple and poppy seed strudel has four delicious mouth-watering layers – poppy seed, curd, walnut, and apple layer with sultanas. In many ways, it is reminiscent of one of the best Slovenian dessert Prekmurska gibanica.

Hi, guys!

It’s about time to make another kindda Slovenian recipe – another dessert inspired by our traditional Prekmurska gibanica. Remember the Spring Strawberry Layer Cake in a Glass, that is a very light and healthy version of the original recipe. Well, this time it’s also a little lighter, but just a little bit.

The original Prekmurska gibanica is very heavy on the fat, not that this apple and poppy seed strudel recipe is not, but much much less 😀

Okay, I’m making it sound like a dissaster of a dessert. It’s actually not and it really is one of my favorite Slovenian desserts. With four different delicious layers you can’t go wrong, right?

I left the layers as are, but added honey in two of them (the poppy seed and the walnut layer), because you know I’m addicted to honey 😉 My breakfast today… honey on bread and butter. You see! ADDICTED!

I hope you don’t get scared by the four layers, because these fillings are literally the easiest you-can’t-do-it-wrong fillings. And if you don’t like an ingredient, change it. For example, you could use different fruit, or change walnuts for some other nuts. So many choices.

This was actually one of those recipes, that I didn’t even plan to make. I was left with some phyllo dough that was about to go bad and was firstly thinking of making a simple, but yet delicious, apple strudel. But since that’s probably the most common type of strudel I make, I thought, I should do it differently this time and see if I can make a layered strudel like Prekmurska gibanica.

Guess what, yes! And it’s pretty freakin’ delish. At first I added too much poppy seeds and not enough apples, which made it a little dry, so I changed the recipe. Now it’s moist and sooo yummy.

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Nutty Apple & Poppy Seed Strudel

Course Dessert

Prep Time 30 minutes

Cook Time 40 minutes

Total Time 1 hour 10 minutes

Ingredients

POPPY SEED LAYER

• 100 g ground poppy seeds
• 100 ml boiling milk
• 1 TBSP honey

CURD LAYER

• 300 g curd
• 2 eggs
• 1 TBSP icing sugar
• zest of 1 lemon

WALNUT LAYER

• 200 g ground wallnuts
• 150 ml boiling milk
• 2 TBSP honey

APPLE LAYER

• 6 medium-size apples around 1kg, peeled and coarsely grated
• 2 tsp cinammon
• 120 g sultanas
• warm water

STRUDEL

• 500 g phyllo pastry 10 sheets of 35 x 45 cm
• 150 g butter melted
• Icing sugar for sprinkling

Instructions

Poppy seed layer

1. Pour boiling milk over ground poppy seeds and mix well with a spoon. Once the mixture has cooled a little, add honey and mix again.

Curd layer

1. Split the eggs into egg whites and yolks. Mix curd, icing sugar, lemon zest and yolks with a spoon. In a separate bowl beat the egg whites until they form stiff peaks and fold it gently into the curd mixture.

Walnut layer

1. Pour boiling milk over ground walnuts and mix well with a spoon. Once the mixture has cooled a little, add honey and mix again. If there's excess liquid on bottom, drain the mixture through a fine sieve.

Apple layer

1. Put sultanas in a bowl and cover the with warm water. Leave them to soak for 15-20 minutes, then drain. Mix together grated apples, cinammon and sultanas.

Assembly and baking: Preheat the oven to 200°C.

1. Coat a big baking tray with melted butter. The trey should be big enough to hold five 35cm long rolls.
2. Spread a generous amount of butter over one sheet of phyllo pastry with a brush, cover it with another sheet and spread butter over this one too.
3. Visually divide the sheet into 5 parts (lenghtwise). Spread poppy seed mixture over the first, curd layer over the second, walnut layer over the third and apples over the fourth. The first will be a little thinner, the fourth a little thicker and the fifth will be empty. Start rolling from the poppy seed layer. Roll as wide or narrow as your baking tray allows. You are going to have 5 of these rolls.
4. Place the rolls into baking tray and cover the tops with some more butter.
5. Bake for about 40 minutes, until the crust looks golden.
6. When you take it out the crust might look soggy, but it will get crisp once it cools.
7. Sprinkle with some icing sugar before serving.