Apfelstrudel a la Franz Ruhm (Kochbuch für Alle ) and Helga's Oma:

Mix 1-2 c flour

1 egg

pinch of salt

1 Tbsp oil

cool - warm water as needed

Mix above ingredients and knead into a semi soft dough. Knead until satiny and elastic- add flour sparingly as needed. Put into greased bowl, turn to put oily side up. Cover and let

rest for at least 20 minutes in a warm (not hot) area Cover table with old (but clean!!!) bedsheet or old white tablecloth. Dust with flour.Take dough out of bowl and roll out to a rectangular shape. Brush with oil. Cover hands with flour and put hands (back side up) under dough and

start pulling dough out - if you use inside of hands, it might work for a while but you will soon poke holes into the dough with your fingers. Always pull from the middle out. (Have other people help to hold onto the part that is already thin. You will have thicker edges - just cut them off at the end of the pulling. If you have a hole, don't worry - just take a piece of leftover dough or one of the thicker edges, pull it thinner and paste over the hole by wetting the edges and pressing down.

Melt about a 1/4 c butter and drizzle over the dough. Saute 1/4 - ½ c breadcrumbs in 3 - 4 Tbsp butter until golden brown - distribute over the dough. Leave long edges about one handwidth free . Now distribute about 4 lbs of acidic apples (Granny Smith or the like) peeled and cut (not too thinly) apples on top of dough (I always drop them into

water mixed with lemon juice after peeling and cutting) - add about 1/4 c raisins and 1/4 finely chopped walnuts (or to taste), drizzle with lemon juice and sprinkle with cinammon and (powder) sugar - rather less than too much.

Now for the fun part: Pick up the cloth on its long side with two hands spaced apart and start rolling up the Strudel (use cloth only!). When done, you need at least 2 pair of hands to "heave ho" the long Strudel onto a greased baking sheet. You can either put it into a U shape if the cookie sheet is big enough or cut it into two, cover the openings with foil and put onto two sheets (this is my least favorite part but somehow it always works out) - make sure the seam is underneath! Brush Strudel with melted butter and bake in preheated oven about 30 -40 minutes at about 350-375until light brown . Brush occasionally with butter (my Oma used also milk to make it crispier). You can serve it hot (I remember this as a main meal - one of many "Mehlspeisen" like Mohnnudeln, Zwetschkenknoedl, Palatschinken, Kaiserschmarrn, etc I loved so much) or cold, serve covered with powdered sugar (icecream is just as good with this as with American apple pie!!) Guten

Appetit!