Caramel Apple Strudel

March. One year since the pandemic began. One year since the schools closed and the world shrank to the dimensions of a kitchen and a Zoom screen and a man in a chair who is forgetting. I am not marking the anniversary — you don't celebrate the anniversary of a catastrophe, you endure past it — but I am noting it, the way I note all significant dates, in the journal, in the internal calendar, in the place where Ruth Feldman keeps track of the things that shaped her life, because the shaping is constant and the noting is how I maintain the illusion of control.

But things are different now. I am vaccinated. I held Hannah last week. The schools are talking about full reopening in the fall. The world is slowly, cautiously, imperfectly turning back toward something that resembles the world I knew before, and the resemblance is not exact — it will never be exact, because we are different now, all of us, shaped by the year in ways we don't yet fully understand — but the resemblance is there, and I will take the resemblance while I wait for the reality.

Marvin is the same — which is to say, worse, because "the same" with Alzheimer's is always worse, the baseline shifting downward so gradually that "the same" is a fiction I maintain to avoid confronting the trajectory. He eats less. He speaks less. He sleeps more. The windows are fewer and further apart. I visit the windows when they open and I stay as long as I'm allowed and I bring soup.

I made hamantaschen — Purim is this month, and the hamantaschen are the tradition, and the tradition does not pause for pandemics or anniversaries or the slow erosion of the man in the chair. The cookies are poppy seed and apricot, as always. The dough is Sylvia's, as always. The triangles are neat, as always. The kitchen smells of butter and vanilla and the specific persistence of a woman who bakes through everything. One year. The hamantaschen are ready. So am I.

The hamantaschen were cooling on the rack and I still had three apples on the counter, the good kind from the co-op, and Sylvia’s voice in my head said: don’t waste. So I made a strudel, because strudel is what you make when the dough is already in your hands and the kitchen already smells like butter and the year has been long enough that you deserve something warm and caramel-sweet at the end of it. It is not a complicated recipe — nothing about it demands more than you have to give — and after this year, that is exactly what I needed from a dessert.

Prep Time: 20 min | Cook Time: 30 min | Total Time: 50 min | Servings: 8

Ingredients

1 sheet frozen puff pastry (from a 17.3 oz package), thawed
3 medium apples (such as Honeycrisp or Granny Smith), peeled, cored, and thinly sliced
1/3 cup caramel sauce, plus more for drizzling
1/4 cup packed light brown sugar
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1/4 tsp ground nutmeg
1 tbsp fresh lemon juice
1/4 cup chopped walnuts (optional)
1 large egg, beaten (for egg wash)
1 tbsp powdered sugar, for dusting

Instructions

Preheat and prepare. Heat oven to 375°F. Line a large baking sheet with parchment paper and set aside.
Season the apples. In a large bowl, toss sliced apples with brown sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg, and lemon juice until evenly coated. Let sit 5 minutes.
Roll the pastry. On a lightly floured surface, unfold the thawed puff pastry sheet and gently roll it into a 12×14-inch rectangle.
Fill the strudel. Arrange the apple mixture lengthwise down the center third of the pastry, leaving a 1-inch border at each short end. Drizzle the 1/3 cup caramel sauce over the apples, then scatter walnuts on top if using.
Fold and seal. Fold the long sides of pastry up over the filling, overlapping slightly, and press gently to seal. Tuck and press the short ends closed. Carefully transfer to the prepared baking sheet, seam side down.
Brush and score. Brush the top and sides of the strudel with beaten egg. Using a sharp knife, cut 4–5 small diagonal slits across the top to allow steam to escape.
Bake. Bake for 28–32 minutes, until the pastry is deep golden brown and the filling is bubbling through the slits. If the top browns too quickly, tent loosely with foil.
Cool and finish. Let the strudel cool on the baking sheet for at least 15 minutes before slicing. Dust with powdered sugar and drizzle with additional caramel sauce before serving.

Nutrition (per serving)

Caramel Apple Strudel — Dough and Persistence, One Year Later