Holiday Shortcuts: Cherry Strudel

Food has styles and fashions. And in the last few years, as we've gotten out of the habit of ready-to-eat frozen foods or canned foods in favor of fresh, home-made, and preservative free. But there are still a few stand-outs that make holiday cooking easy, elegant, delicious and less time-consuming. (The products we use, for the most part, are made from fresh ingredients and have no added colors or dyes or unpronounceable ingredients.)

Frozen Phyllo Dough: I think frozen phyllo dough is one of the greatest inventions (my mother thought Pepperidge Farm Puff Pastry was, so it runs in the family). Simply defrost the phyllo dough and melt some butter. Using a pyrex baking dish, grease the dish with butter, then line the bottom with a layer of phyllo dough, brush with melted butter.

Then open up our other favorite things that comes in a jar -- "The Ultimate Cherry Pie Cobbler Filling" -- which is on sale at William Sonoma. Add a thinnish (not too thin) layer of cherry pie filling, place another layer of phyllo dough, brush with butter, add a thinnish layer of cherry pie filling -- until you have about four layers.

If you want to be extra fancy, crush some walnuts and toss with brown sugar and make a top layer of the walnuts and brown sugar, drizzle with melted butter, add one more layer of phyllo dough and brush with butter.

Bake in a 350 oven for 45 minutes to an hour, checking it occasionally to make sure the top is golden brown and not burning and that the cherries aren't losing too much liquid.

Voila, you have a faux cherry strudel that's so impressive you could even make up a story about the amazing Austrian lady you discovered who bakes these at home and sells them out of her kitchen, if you wanted to.

 

Comments

[PatA]

Buy two cans of good tart cherries. Drain about 3/4 cup of the juice. Mix 1 tbs flour and 3/4 cup of sugar together. Add to the drained cherries and add a dab of almond flavoring. Melt a half stick of real butter and as you make the layers, drizzle it on the cherries. Viola! Cherry cobbler filling...­coming to you from Lockhart, Texas! p.s. if you think it looks like the cherries have too much liquid...d­rain off before you add flour and sugar.

[MsCassy]

Oh come on folks. Lighten up! She was just joking. Sheesh!!
The strudel sounds really good. I'm going to try it. Thanks.

[Slick88]

Second that -

[Slick88]

2nd that - this sounds great with very little work.

[godemsinnc]

This sounded so good that I went right to the Williams Sonoma website to order some cherry filling -- and I couldn't find it! Any ideas? I searched "cherry" and "filling" and really felt like I looked pretty hard. I'm sure this recipe can be made with regular old grocery store cherry filling, but wanted to try this if I can.

[Amy Ephron - Huffpost Blogger]

It's called "The Ultimate Cherry Pie and Cobbler Filling" and sadly, I think, it may only be available in store! It doesn't seem to be on their on-line site. But it is available in any Wm Sonoma store if there's one anywhere near you. I, also, bet you could call any Wm. Sonoma Store and they wouuld ship it to you.... It's really great!

[Benthead]

I think the last suggestion about making up where it came from was tongue in cheek.

And speaking of what tongues and taste, the strudel sounds yummy.

[lakat]

You spoiled your lovely story with your suggesting a lie about where it came from. Maybe you were just making a point that it seems more laborious and authentic than it really is but we are so mired in lies these days and maybe we should be more careful about honoring the truth, even in such light subjects as cooking.

Otherwise I would love to use your strudel method!

[Slick88]

Lighten up!