Nectarine and rye streusel strudel
I stretched my first strudel in my late twenties. I was working
in a restaurant’s savoury section and my ‘ache to bake’ was an
insatiable beast only released out of hours. At home, I would
at times churn out three or four strudels each night, settling on
an apple streusel strudel as my signature strude. One night, my
friend Joey took a huge piece home. He told me later he pulled
over en route and ate it all in the car, at 1 am on a dark side
road, the smell intoxicating him.

I use nectarines because they’re better than apples (there,
I’ve said it). Juicy and tangy, they’re the perfect textural
juxtaposition with the crunchy strudel leaves. The streusel will
soak up any soggifying fruit juices and keep the dough layers
subtly and helpfully separated. Don’t skimp on the clarified
butter – it bakes cleaner and richer after the removal of the milk
solids, leaving nothing but a flawless furl of flaky fragments.

Preheat the oven to 190°C (375°F). Your dough should be just
stretched and ready for the filling.*

Don’t prepare the filling too far in advance, as the sugar will draw out too
much moisture from the fruit. You want to retain the juiciness in the fruit,
not have it sitting in the bottom of the bowl.

If you have a small delay, cover the stretched dough with a tea towel
(dish towel).

Clarify the butter while you make the filling. Cook the butter in a
small saucepan over a medium–low heat until the butter separates
into a sunshiny yellow top with no froth and the white solids have just
started turning golden on the base. Remove from the heat, pour the
yellow butter into a small bowl and discard the milky white solids.

Keep the clarified butter warm and set aside with a pastry brush.

If the butter gets past clarified to brown butter, strain and use. It will just
have an extra aroma of brown butter, which is so very okay.

Clarified butter bakes cleanly with no dark brown milk solid speckles.

continued …

Keeps Best eaten soon after baking.

Keep leftovers chilled and re-crisp for
20 minutes in a 130°C (265°F) oven.

Makes One strudel for 4–8 people.

Takes 4 hours from dough to go, but

you can make the Strudel dough the
day before.
1 × batch Stretchy dough
(page 78), rested for 2 hours
at room temperature and
stretched according to the
recipe
150 g (5½ oz) unsalted butter
cooking oil spray
1 × batch Crisp rye streusel
(page 274)
caster (superfine) sugar for
pre-bake sprinkle
icing (confectioners’) sugar
for post-bake dusting
Nectarine filling
500 g (1 lb 2 oz) (400 g/14 oz
prepped weight) slightly
underripe nectarines
40 g (1½ oz) light brown sugar
15 g (½ oz) unsalted butter,
super soft and squidgy
15 g (½ oz) cornflour
(cornstarch)
1 g (¹⁄₃₂oz/¼ teaspoon) sea salt
flakes
finely grated zest of 1 lemon