Ťahaný závin: how to make pulled strudel

Pulled strudel is generally thought of as an Austrian dessert, but it became popular all over the Hapsburg Empire, which included Slovakia. Paper thin flaky layers of dough are rolled around various fillings, from poppy seed to apple. Called both štrúdľa or závin in Slovak, závin can also refer to a similar rolled log made with a yeast dough.

I wanted to make pulled strudel some time ago so I looked up some videos and, upon being shown how easy it was, said, “Nope, someone has to show me.” It looked hard, or at least required skills I had never used.

I have good news and bad news. The bad news is that it is really hard to make a perfectly pulled strudel. The good news is that it doesn’t really matter. Honestly. 

While learning about opantance (the millet and gnocchi dish), Teta also showed me how to make ťahaná štrúdľa. The first time we made it, her daughter didn’t have the right kind of flour but we went ahead anyway. It didn’t really work. It didn’t stretch much and there were big holes, but we added some filling and baked it up anyway, and it was delicious.

After a successful pulled strudel with Teta and family, I made one at home to experiment with half the amount of flour, as Teta told me it was also possible because the full amount does make a lot of strudel. It stretched, but not excellently. It had dough ‘veins’ (more about that later) and certainly wasn’t thin enough to read a newspaper underneath, one of the marks of a well pulled dough. But that strudel tasted amazing, if I do say so myself, and didn’t look bad either (it’s the cheese strudel below).

So, making perfectly pulled strudels take practice – but even imperfect strudels taste and look delicious.

“Everything depends on the flour,” said Teta. An old Slovak cookbook advises using only well dried flour. Sharing baked recipes is kind of tricky because Slovakia has so many types of flour grinds. In Slovakia they use a fine grind for pulled strudel. More notes on flour are below.

Pulled strudel is one recipe that can’t be made gluten-free (although I’ve seen recipes for gluten-free rolled strudel) because it is precisely due to the gluten that it can stretch so thin. It’s also why this recipe needs to be kneaded or mixed for quite some time, to develop those gluten strands until they streeeeeetch out thin.

As we stretched the dough, Adela (Teta’s daughter) recalled childhood memories of her grandmother making pulled strudel. All the grandkids were called to the table to come help stretch out the dough, their small hands learning the art of pulling dough next to their grandmother’s weathered ones.

How to make pulled strudel, with pictures

The classic way of mixing many types of dough in Slovakia is to skip the bowl and put all the ingredients straight on an extra large cutting board. The dough will feel wet and sticky, but don’t add more flour or it will be too stiff to stretch. Teta kneaded the dough by scooping up from the bottom, pulling up and a little bit out, and then bringing the dough back underneath, in a circle around the perimeter of the dough. Don’t use your thumb, she told me when I tried it, which feels awkward at first. The top shouldn’t be folded over top of but maintain a smooth surface by folding underneath it.

Knead the dough until it is no longer sticky on your hands and bowl or surface. Small air bubbles will form on the surface, which should be smooth and a little shiny. Kneading by hand, this will take about 30 minutes. If kneading for half an hour seems like a lot of work (it is), you can also quicken the process by using a mixer. With the dough attachment, let the dough mix for about 20 minutes, then turn the dough out on a surface and give it a quick knead as above for a few minutes to give it a nice smooth top.

A rare photo of me, less expertly attempting to knead the dough.

This video is first in slow motion to give you an idea of the kneading movement, starting in the middle of the kneading process. The second regular speed section is towards the end, and you can see that less dough is sticking to the bottom. The slow motion makes it sound like a horse snorts, but no horses were involved in the making of this pulled strudel.

The dough then needs to rest. Teta told me it should rest for 30 minutes, I’ve seen recipes that swear you shouldn’t touch it before 2 hrs. So, somewhere in that time frame. The dough needs to rest in a warm place and a trick they showed me is to heat up an empty dry pot until it is warm, not super hot, and place it upside down over the dough.

I found it easiest to rest the dough on the cloth that the strudel will be later stretched out over. Flour the centre of the cloth liberally, a little bigger than the size of the dough as the dough will spread out somewhat, or let the dough rest on another surface.

When you are ready to pull the dough, cover a table with a cotton or linen cloth, like a clean sheet, if you haven’t done so already. Sprinkle flour over the cloth. Place the dough on the cloth and grease the back of your hands. Use a rolling pin to start the dough, rolling into a rectangle the same shape as the table.

Using the back of your hands, start stretching the dough out. If you use your fingers with palms facing out, it is easier to rip a hole. If you can stretch the sides over the edge of the table, that helps keep the dough from springing back. If possible, get more people involved in stretching the dough out, but only one person can do it too. Walk around the table, stretching out the dough from the middle. I didn’t get a lot of pictures of this because I was recruited to pull dough too.

In a perfect world, the dough can get thin enough to read a letter underneath. If the dough rips and makes a hole, it’s ok, just keep going. The hole will be lost in all the layers when you roll it up. As well, ideally there should be no ‘veins’ of thicker dough or flour running through the dough but again, don’t worry if it does have veins.

With scissors or a knife, walk around the table cutting off the thicker outer edge. My mother-in-law remembered that very experienced strudel makers were able to make another roll with those trimmings.

Sprinkle the dough with melted butter – don’t brush it on – and get ready to add on the filling of your choice. Starting at one narrow end of the table, place some filling on the dough, leaving space on all sides. Fold the end piece of dough over top the filling, and add more filling on top of the dough. Spread the filling over the rest of the dough, and fold the dough from the sides over.

Lift up the end of the cloth to start the dough rolling. To create extra crispy and rich layers, you can brush each roll with melted butter. I noticed this made the most difference on the dough layers without filling right next to it and didn’t notice much of a difference in the middle, other than making it richer. The dough with filling next to it gets a bit soggy with or without the butter.

If you look closely below, the side dough has been folded and more filling placed over top.

For a smaller strudel, you can roll only halfway and make two flavours, or you can make a fatter strudel and roll all the way.

Take the roll and either form it into the shape of an S or U to fit it on a cookie sheet covered with parchment paper. To prevent cracking, poke a few small slits with the end of a knife so that the steam can escape. You can also cut it into three pieces and freeze some for future baking. Brush with butter and bake at 400F (200C) for about 20 minutes. After the strudel has cooled, cut into thick chunks and optionally dust with icing sugar.

Filling flavours

When I made the strudel with Teta, we made sour cherry with poppy seed for one half and apple cinnamon on the other half. At home, I made tvaroh (quark/curds, similar to farmers cheese or ricotta) with raisins. Those are some of the most common flavours, along with plain poppy seed or walnut.

An old cookbook I have also lists a sweet cabbage filling made with icing sugar, raisins, and cinnamon; a potato filling with icing sugar and lemon peel; a filling made with cream of wheat and egg whites; a rhubarb filling; and a grape filling. I haven’t tried those fillings though, so I haven’t included the recipes here, but if you leave a blog comment I can add the recipes.

Notes

Flour: Many European countries have multiple grinds of flour – all the same type of wheat but in a range of fineness-coarseness. For strudel, they use the fine grind, hladka muka. Many recipes for North America recommend using bread flour as it has a higher gluten content and thus makes the stretching easier, but some say that this makes a more bready and tough dough once baked. Whether you use bread flour or all-purpose flour is up to you – I would maybe use half and half for a first try.

Amount: The recipe for 300 grams (2 1/2 cups) of flour does make a lot of strudel. Teta told me that strudel can also be made with only 150 grams. I tried it, using only an egg white, and while it was successful and easier to stretch by myself, it was about the same amount of work as the larger amount. Personally, if I go to the effort of making pulled strudel, I’d rather make more for the same effort. Eating massive amounts of food is not a problem around this house, but it is too much for you, you can wrap a unbaked log in plastic wrap, freeze it, and bake it later.

Fillings: The filling recipes below are to cover the dough of one 300 gram (2 1/2 cup) recipe. If you would like to make smaller rolls of different flavours, cut the recipe in half.

You are free to make the fillings more or less sweet according to your preferences – I don’t like super sweet desserts and never used all the sugar called for. I have also used honey, which tastes good but results in more juices leaking. Unrefined sugar would also work well.

These are common fillings but there are many variations – apple with walnut, cherry with poppy seed and apple, cheese with almonds. Have fun with the tastes.