apple strudel

This apple strudel is the kind of recipe you make once and never stop thinking about. A flaky, shortening-based crust, a simple cinnamon apple filling, and a thin vanilla icing drizzled right over the top while it’s still hot. It works as dessert, it works at breakfast, and it comes together without any fussy techniques.

Why You’ll Love It

Double duty dessert and breakfast — hearty enough to serve in the morning, sweet enough to end a meal
Simple filling, big flavor — just apples, cinnamon, sugar, and flour, no complicated spice blends needed
Forgiving crust — this dough is more like a sturdy pastry than traditional pie dough, easier to work with and very hard to mess up
That icing — thin, vanilla-scented, and spread over a hot crust so it melts in just slightly. Don’t skip it.
Keeps well — just as good on day two, maybe better

A Few Notes on the Ingredients

The apples: use whatever you like to bake with. I usually grab a mix if I have them — whatever’s getting a little soft on the counter. Granny Smith holds up well. I’ve used Honeycrisp and they’re great but they do get a bit softer. Avoid anything too mealy. You want a little structure.
Shortening in the crust is non-negotiable for me. I know some people have moved away from it, and I’ve read all the reasons why, but this is one of those places where I’m not flexible. The crust has a specific texture with shortening that I’ve never been able to replicate with butter or anything else. End of conversation.
The egg situation is a little fussy to explain but easy in practice: you’re mixing the egg yolks into the dough, then reserving the whites to brush the top. You add water to the yolks to make a full cup of liquid. It’s a technique I’ve seen in old Midwestern baking and it makes the crust flaky in a particular way.
Powdered sugar for the icing — just mix it with a little vanilla and cream or milk until it’s thin enough to spread. You want it loose. It’s going on hot pastry and it should melt in slightly, not sit on top like a glaze.

Ingredients

Apple Filling

6 cups apples, peeled and sliced (about 5–6 medium apples, I never count exactly)
1 cup sugar
½ cup all-purpose flour
1 tsp cinnamon

Crust

3¾ cups all-purpose flour
½ tsp salt
1 tbsp sugar
1½ cups shortening
2 egg yolks plus enough water to equal 1 cup — reserve the egg whites

Icing

1 cup powdered sugar
2 tbsp milk or light cream, approximately
½ tsp vanilla extract

Let’s Make It

Preheat your oven to 350°F. While that’s heating up, peel and slice your apples — I do mine in thin-ish slices, not too thin or they’ll disappear into mush. Toss them with the sugar, flour, and cinnamon and set the bowl aside. The filling will start to get a little syrupy as it sits, which is fine. That’s what you want.
For the crust: combine the flour, salt, and sugar, then cut in the shortening. This is the part where people who are nervous about pastry start to get anxious. Don’t. Work it until it looks like coarse crumbs — some people say “pea-sized pieces” and that’s about right. Then add your egg yolk and water mixture and stir it together until a dough forms. It shouldn’t be sticky. If it is, a little more flour.
Divide the dough in half. Take one half and roll it out to fit a 10×15 inch jelly roll pan — with the sides, not just the bottom. I’ll be honest, I’ve never been super precise about this. I roll it out roughly to size and press it in. It doesn’t need to be perfect. Spread your apple filling over the crust in an even layer.
Roll out your second piece of dough and lay it over the top. Press the edges together — I crimp them with a fork sometimes, sometimes I just press and call it a day. Brush the top with the reserved egg white. It gives the crust this beautiful golden sheen that I still find deeply satisfying to look at, every single time. Cut a few small slits across the top so the steam can get out.
Bake for 45 to 60 minutes. My oven runs a little hot and I’m usually pulling it at around 48 minutes. You want the top to be a deep golden brown — not pale, really properly golden. The apples inside should be completely soft.
While it’s still hot out of the oven, mix your icing — just whisk the powdered sugar with vanilla and add cream or milk a little at a time until it’s thin and pourable. Spread or drizzle it over the hot crust. It’ll melt in a little and that’s exactly right. Don’t let it cool first.

Variations:

Some people make theirs with brown sugar in the filling instead of white, which gives it a more molasses-y flavor. It’s good. Different. I keep going back to white sugar because it’s what I grew up with.
I’ve seen versions of this with raisins in the filling and I will simply never do that. You can. I won’t stop you. But raisins in apple pastry is a personal preference that I happen not to share.
Some people add a little lemon zest to the filling. That’s not a bad idea. I just always forget.

Storage

This keeps for a couple of days at room temperature, loosely covered — it doesn’t need to be refrigerated unless your kitchen is very warm. Honestly, by day two it’s arguably better. The crust softens slightly and the filling settles and it all becomes this dense, satisfying slab that is absolutely fine as a breakfast if no one’s watching.