Just Add Apples: How to Make the Ultimate Apple Strudel and Cider-Glazed Bundt Cake

[Music] today on america's test kitchen aaron and bridget make the ultimate apple strudel adam reveals his top pick for bunt pans and julia and bridget make the best cider glazed apple bundt cake it's all coming up right here on america's test kitchen [Music] traditional strudel it starts with strudel dough and that's a mixture of flour water and enough fat in the form of oil egg yolks or both to keep the dough pliable and stretchable now that dough is gently stretched until it's so thin that you can literally read a newspaper through it we recently tried making this dough in the test kitchen i have to say it was a challenging process so erin is here and she's going to show us a much easier version of apple strudel i am not only easier but tastier too good you're going to taste those apples so we tried many different recipes and recipes these days call for a store bought phyllo dough which is much easier than the traditional dough sure but it also does come with a bunch of problems the recipes that we tried the bottom crust was very dense and tough the top crust was fly away and it's very hard to control and the filling is very pasty and gummy and they didn't have a lot of apple flavor believe it or not often juices would come out and it would glue the actual strudel to the pan and so we solved all those problems great so we're gonna start with the apple we're using golden delicious apples we chose golden delicious for a few different reasons number one they're easy to find number two it's a sweet apple and number three they hold their shape when baked i have to confess i don't love using apple corers bridget unless i'm actually making a baked apple dessert or something that calls for a whole cord apple i'm going to cut these into half inch pieces i'm going to start by cutting off half inch planks and then just work my way around the apple that's great so you're always flipping that flat side always cut against the board so now i'm going to cut half inch strips and then i'm just going to turn it and cut crosswise into half inch pieces so we're using a pound and three quarters of golden delicious apples now we're going to add three tablespoons of white sugar a half a teaspoon of lemon zest one and a half teaspoons of lemon juice a quarter teaspoon of ground cinnamon that's not a lot so that's a good sign a little bit quarter teaspoon of ground ginger and an eighth of a teaspoon of table salt anytime you bake something you always want to add a little bit of salt to cut through the sweetness i know a lot of people think that it's just salt is bad but it actually really brings out the flavors i agree now we're gonna actually microwave these apples we found that power cooking the apples allows the apples to hold their shape two minutes in the microwave i'm going to stir it halfway through that's all it takes okay all right let's talk a little bit about what's going on with those apples now when you par cook apples you set off an enzymatic reaction that causes the pectin in the fruit to set the pectin molecules have compounds called esters on more than half of their sugars now when apples are heated to within the 160 degree range an enzyme called pectin methyl esterase becomes very active and it chomps the esters the esters then get replaced by calcium ions which link the pectin together as it forms a gel and this means that the fruit holds its shape as it continues to cook at higher temperatures okay so bridget our apples have come out of the microwave and they've been sitting here covered for five minutes oh you can instantly smell that i'll smell so good we're gonna drain our apples and the reason why we let them rest for five minutes is so that they could heat all the way through and complete our cooking okay and that par cooking has allowed the juices to come out of the apples so we're controlling exactly the right amount of liquid that's going into our strudel so now i'm just going to transfer our juices and we're going to use this later on now we're going to finish our filling we're going to add three tablespoons of golden raisins do you have to add raisins to this no you don't but there's there's actually two camps the raisin camp and the non-raising camp i actually love raisins i have a feeling i know what camp you're in you know i'm i'm a mezza-meza i can take them or later okay well we'll see how you like them okay they're already in here and then the next ingredient which is a very key ingredient are bread crumbs okay so we're going to use a tablespoon and a half of panko bread crumbs you won't even know what's in there bridget no but it's going to do just enough to control the remaining apple juices that are going to come out during the baking process that is a huge reduction in bread crumbs okay so our apple filling is complete that's it now i'm going to add an eighth of a teaspoon of salt to seven tablespoons of unsalted butter i like to control the amount of salt that goes into my butter a lot of salted butters out there contain more salt than that it's true it's absolutely true you don't really know what you're getting how much salt you're getting when you buy butter from the store that's already salted and even within the same brand it can vary exactly now i'm going to divide this up because we have an arts and crafts project coming up bridgette so this butter is for you all right we have our filo here field can be very daunting to use and intimidating so there's a couple of tips you should always keep in mind when using fila for any recipe not just strudel phyllo usually comes in the freezer section and you need to defrost it so the best way to defrost it is by putting the box in your refrigerator overnight and then take it out of the fridge put on your counter for about 30 minutes before you start to use it filo is very dry and we need to keep it moist the best method was to first cover the phyllo with a piece of plastic wrap and then cover it with a damp towel one of the things that we did to make this easier is to make two smaller strudels instead of one big strudel so phyllo dough is very delicate and it can tear which is okay that's something you can count on sometimes you might find a box of fila that actually has a tear all the way through all the layers and that's okay if you do get that box all you have to do is when you're building it is to stagger the layers so that all the cuts don't line up they're just staggered because that would make a weak point it would make a weak point and juices would escape and that would be a big problem cats and dogs living together terrifying i'm just going to first drizzle butter over it we're going to brush it lightly it should be covered completely but not heavily i found that it's actually easier if you brush with the grain of the phyllo there's less tearing this is very forgiving it doesn't have to be perfect because we're gonna make a bunch of layers good how's that that's beautiful all right this is actually a really important step after we spread it with butter we're just going to lightly sprinkle each layer with confectioners sugar and that's going to kind of create a glue i mentioned those tough strudels earlier the bottom crust is very tough you couldn't even get a fork through it bridgette it was really bad and a lot of those recipes actually called for up to 11 layers of phyllo we're going to only use seven layers here and each time you add a piece of peel you just want to press on it so that it's stuck together i also like to stir my butter up so that it's emulsified i feel like i'm making a bed over and over again and you're perfecting like the edges and tucking in tucking part comes later all right hospital corners are later yes it's a fun project isn't it it's great i love i love love recipes that call for kind of assembly and it goes together twice as fast when you share the labor right exactly yes so i see some practice makes for good speed here too it does you're like you're on it i get into the zone it's fun all right i'm going to kick it into competitive mode now dilly dallying bridgette no powdered sugar this is the last layer right this is it it's a tie [Laughter] photo finish all right okay bridgette it's now time to fill our strudels apple time apple time i'm going to take half of the filling for my strudel and give you the other half and it's important that we stay two inches away from the bottom line and two inches away from the sides and this ruler is really handy for a few different reasons it helps wind my filling up and it also helps me to measure the two inches that i need to abide by how's this looking beautiful true nice job bridget now we're going to use our parchment as a tool to actually lift up and we're going to fold the sides over the mound you just want to fold it over press it down that top layer of butter that we added is going to help glue the sides down and make it easier to actually assemble i'm going to do the same thing with the other side all right and the same thing with the bottom gotcha and the parchment is really great it keeps your fingers clean and it helps to kind of like keep that two and a half inch wide mound and depress this is our apple juices from earlier and this is going to actually add apple flavor to the outside but it's also going to help us glue the sides together as we assemble you want to brush all the folded sides how does that do that looks beautiful all right i usually turn this to the side and i put my hand underneath and i just fold that right over top and it should overlap this area by about an inch okay so now i'm just pressing it as you can see the seam is not on the bottom of the strudel if we tuck the seam underneath then we would have 14 layers of phyllo right that would just be the recipe for a tough bottom coat right there you don't want that we were trying to exactly right so now we're going to take the remaining apple juices and we're just going to brush the top and the sides and it's okay if it curls up a little bit because you can just pat it back down and you want to just make sure that that seam is pinched together get a thin metal spatula put it underneath the placement is very important as you can see i placed the seam side towards the center of the pan if it was on the outside of the tray it's going to heat up more quickly and it's going to puff and it's going to possibly pop okay so we don't want that yet okay gotcha we want to use up a little bit more of this apple liquid and i'm just going to brush the tops of both of our strudels and this is going to help the crust get nice and brown and shiny and it's going to add a little bit more apple flavor oh yeah so now we're going to bake these in a 375 degree oven on the upper middle rack for about 30 minutes okay i'm going to rotate it halfway through beautiful those are gorgeous look at that so they're nice and golden brown and they've actually puffed a little bit we are gonna transfer them to a cutting board okay and we're gonna let them rest for three minutes the whole kitchen smells like apple heaven you see why it was so smart to do two smaller strudels and one bigger one yeah it would have been really hard to get off that point much easier to handle okay bridgette it's been three minutes and they're ready to slice it's important to slices while it's hot oh that's actually going to really reduce the shatter effect i'm going to cut each one of these into thirds and then how long do we wait we're gonna wait 20 minutes are you ready i am so ready i was ready about 23 minutes i'm gonna dust these first with confectioners sugar make that very pretty oh beautiful oh my gosh bridget look at that this beautiful light all right what's the best way to eat this super awesome flaky pastry i just dive into it okay wow i love the raisins in there i'm not a raisin fan i gotta say they actually add a lot nice little sweetness in there they're subtle this is the bottom layer caramelized dark falling apart it's those apple juices that we brush the top with those really caramelized no the other part the inside the filling is not gummy at all we controlled the apple liquid so many apple strudels you end up with apple strudel soup there's tons of apple inside but there's no apple flavor this is packed with apple flavor to make this clever recipe for apple strudel microwave golden delicious apples with sugar lemon and spices build two smaller strudels using layers of phyllo with a sugar butter glue fill then roll up the strudels brush with some of that reserved apple liquid and bake them with the seam side in until golden brown cut then cool and dust with confectioners sugar so from our test kitchen to your kitchen an amazing apple packed apple strudel you can get this recipe and all the recipes from this season along with our tastings testings and select episodes on our website americastestkitchen.com all right getting rid of that fork drive in there go for it bridgette [Music] the bundt cake is the beauty queen of this simple cake pageant when there's no thick frosting to hide under the pan you use makes all the difference and adam's here to show us the best of the buns the bunt to beets you might even say julia you're right you know these cakes sometimes get a dusting of confectioners sugar they might get a little glaze very often they're sort of unnatural like these two so there's no hiding imperfection we gathered this lineup of bunt pans there are seven of them the price range is eight dollars and seventy nine cents to thirty dollars and ninety nine cents they are made either of aluminum or steel they all have a non-stick coating because if your bun sticks in the pan when you're turning it out your cup put forget about it and you know you probably know this already but the reason they have this center stack right there is that it draws air up through the middle of the cake which helps with even cooking it also helps with a stable structure because a lot of bunt batters are a little bit on the heavy side the testers used the test kitchen's classic yellow bundt cake and they were judging these cakes on appearance both browning and the definition of the ridges and valleys and peaks they were judging release and they were judging ease of use the good news is that regardless of the material all of these pans actually baked really nice bundt cakes the browning was right where people wanted it to be it was a little bit darker in the pans that have a darker finish because of course those absorb more heat in the oven but still we like the look of a slightly darker crust we also like the flavor they were all right within that sweet spot and all of the pans turned out cakes without an issue now it came down then to the appearance of the ridges take a look at this guy right kind of sad it is a little sad that one came out of this pan here and you can see the ridges are rounded they're shallow they just don't make a very tall impressive looking cake look at this baby here now winner beauty queen that is a beautiful bundt cake and that came out of this pan which has really distinct peaks and valleys and ridges that's what you're looking for this pan also has handles which made it easier in terms of pulling the hot pan out of the oven or turning the cake out so this is our winning bundt pin this is the nordic ware anniversary bundt pan it's 30.99 it makes cakes that look like that you couldn't ask for anything more this is the bun to be so if you want your bundt cake to be a beauty pageant winner use the nordicware anniversary bundt pan which costs 30.99 [Music] if you're making an apple cake there are three reasons why you should use a bundt pan first bundt cakes are simple and usually don't require a stand mixer second the unique shape of a bundt cake means no assembling of cake layers or fancy frostings and finally the pan itself is perfect for dense cakes like an apple cake because the chute in the center helps it bake through evenly well those are good reasons to use a bundt pan but let's talk about why you want to make an apple cake all right so we want an apple cake because we love the flavor of apples but we found that too many apple cakes actually have very little flavor there's a couple of reasons why so let's talk a little bit about apple flavor and actual apples you know a lot of recipes use two pounds or more of apples in the cake it doesn't have enough flavor so you think i'm gonna pack even more apples in there all you get is more moisture a lot more moisture and very little flavor and ends up being very dense too dense gummy with big pockets of apple chunks in there it kind of steams right around it it's a nightmare so we're going to introduce really concentrated apple flavor without adding too much moisture which kind of contradicts what i'm about to say this is what we're adding a quart of moisture a quart of moisture now this is four cups of apple cider it takes three pounds of apples actually to make a quart of cider but we're going to concentrate this even more so let's go over to our skillet nice wide surface area it's going to allow for evaporation so i'm going to put this over high heat and we're going to let this reduce down to one cup about 20 to 25 minutes in the meantime we are going to add some apples one and a half pounds of granny smith so now we are going to grate these apples and use our food processor we outfitted it here with our shredding disc let's put all that grated apple right into a bowl that really was pretty fast faster than using a box grater and your knuckles are intact that is an added ingredient we don't want and now i'm going to put a piece of plastic right on the apples just to help keep them from turning to brown now they might discolor a little bit and that is just fine because they will also brown in the cake it's assembly time this is our cider that we reduced i've got a half a cup of here we're going to use in our cake and another half here just to prove that it is actually a cup well actually you can see it's just a little bit thicker but it's a lot darker in color so we're going to use the cider all over the cake inside and out but let's start on the outside we're going to make a confectioners sugar apple blade so much easier than a frosting so i have here confectioner's sugar this is three quarter cup of confectioners sugar and i will add two tablespoons of our reduced cider and i'll whisk this together it comes together so quickly with very little liquid in there oh it's going to be good i do want to cover it with a little bit of plastic wrap it can tend to dry out since it has confectioners sugar so let's get together our dry ingredients this is three and three quarter cup of all-purpose flour we're going to add one and a half teaspoons of table salt some leavening we have one and a half teaspoons of baking powder and a half a teaspoon of baking soda two leaveners two leaveners that's also going to help with browning and we have three quarter teaspoon of ground cinnamon and a quarter teaspoon of allspice so these are very autumnal flavors exactly and not a lot of spice in here too we want that apple flavor to come through so we'll go ahead and put our half cup more of the reduced glaze in here i've got two sticks of unsalted butter that i've melted and this is one and a half cups of packed dark brown sugar yum three eggs and two teaspoons of vanilla extract so all that brown sugar is going to add a really deep hearty flavor to this apple cake exactly so we just want to whisk all this together break up those egg yolks and at this point i'm just trying to get out any lumps from that brown sugar so that's looking good now we're going to add this to our dry mix and i'll stir this just until most of the flour has been incorporated into the cake but i still want to see a few streaks in here because we have not added the apples yet oh you can smell it already that's looking good and you still can see some of that flour in there so we'll add our apples we're going to pour these in again that was one and a half pounds of apples granny smiths that we went ahead and grated and also any of the juices that were accumulated in the bowl now we're going to put this in a 12 cup bundt pan it's a nonstick bundt pan and you can grease and flour it which is a little bit challenging or you can spray it with baking spray that has flour in it so much easier so much easier so i'm going to pour this right in it's very thick so i'll try to go around the cake i will spin the pan for you i like that and i'll just make sure that it's evenly dispersed through the pan this looks great now we're going to bake it in a 350 degree oven we'll keep it in there between 55 to 65 minutes wow you can really smell the apple what a beautiful cake and it's not even out of the pan yet let's check and see if it's done what we're looking for when i put a skewer right into the middle of the cake it should come out clean there you go nice and clean all right so now we're going to leave this in the pan for just a few minutes but i do want to start applying the rest of that reduced apple cider this is a tablespoon of it i'm gonna brush it right over the top of the cake while it's hot so we're calling this the top of the cake now but actually when we flip it out it'll be the bottom of the cake exactly so we're gonna leave this here for about 10 minutes the cake is going to pull away from the sides of the pan during that time and it'll be a little bit more sturdy so we can turn it up all right 10 minutes after we brushed that beautiful cider on that first side so now we're going to turn the cake out i'm going to turn it out onto a wire rack over a rimmed baking sheet because we want this to catch any drip there we go oh you can tell it's still pretty hot it is still steaming it's a perfect time for us to put the remaining reduced cider all over so this is about five tablespoons more i'm gonna brush it all over this beautiful hot cake and it's just going to slurp it up like a thirsty child on a summer day that looks great the cake has cooled another 20 minutes after we put the glaze all over this side it just smells so good it smells amazing and now we get to use our confectioners sugar glaze that we made earlier but i do want to stir it around just a little bit to loosen it up and we'll use the spoon to drizzle it all over the cake and the glaze is quite thick but you actually want that for a couple of reasons the cake is still hot so it's going to thin out that glaze but you want it to cling to the cake i've seen some glazes that are just so thin and they're actually easy to kind of flick all over a cake but then you end up with a glazed tray and not a glazed cake because it falls right such a bummer all right so i'm just going to finish glazing this we're going to let it cool for two hours need it to cool completely before we cut into it and eat it now during that time some of this glaze is actually going to soak into the cake kind of soften that appearance but don't worry it's not that i ate the glaze off of it it's still in the cake all right slicing time all right all right the other great thing about bundt cakes is the ridges really help delineate what the different portion sizes are beautiful appleicious the texture of the crumb you know it's moist but it's not dense it's tender it's not over spiced either no a little bit of cinnamon a little bit of allspice and you can really just you can taste the apple through and through to make this easy and elegant dessert start by reducing apple cider make a very thick cake batter then stir in a whopping one and a half pounds of shredded granny smith apples bake in a bundt pan then finish with a cider glaze and there you have it from our test kitchen to your kitchen the ultimate recipe for cider glazed apple bundt cake thanks for watching america's test kitchen what'd you think well leave a comment and let us know which recipes you're excited to make or you can just say hello you can find links to today's recipes and reviews in the video description and don't forget to subscribe to our channel see you later i'll see you later

Channel: America's Test Kitchen

Views: 146,101

Keywords: apples, apple dessert recipes, apple desserts, apple strudel, cider-glazed apple bundt cake, bundt cake, bundt cake recipe, apple bundt cake, cake recipe, baking recipes, dessert recipes, apple recipes, baking, bundt pans, kitchen equipment reviews, bundt cake pan, america's test kitchen

Id: UX0l_7K_HQo

Length: 22min 46sec (1366 seconds)

Published: Sun Feb 03 2019