We normally find the savoury versions of these filled filo pasty spirals, sometimes they are called spanakopita (Greek) or börek (Turkish). But strudel is a filo pastry, normally sweet, but not really a spiral. I've combined these dishes and created this Strudel Spiral filled with my favourite sweet breakfast: rice pudding and baked plums.
The filling can be varied, you can find some inspiration in my basic Strudel recipe.
Strudel Spiral - Photo by © Reka Csulak
Ingredients
Strudel
- 1 pack of filo pastry sheets (about 12)
- Melted butter
Rice pudding
- 500 ml whole milk
- 200 g risotto rice
- 2 tbsp sugar
- 1 tbsp vanilla extract
- 500 g plums
- 100 ml rum
- 2 tbsp muscovado or other sugar, honey, maple syrup
- 3-4 cinnamon sticks
- 3-4 star anise
- 5-6 whole cloves
- 1 pinch cardamom, ginger
- 1 tbsp vanilla extract
Instructions
Rice pudding
- Place milk, rice, sugar and vanilla extract in a pot. Bring to a low-medium simmer and put the lid on.
- Cook for 20-30 minutes, until the rice softens. If the pudding is too thick, you can thin it by adding more milk.
Spicy roasted plums
- Find the method here.
Assembly and baking
- Spread 6 of the filo sheets side-to-side on your countertop or a long table. If you have a tablecloth you use for baking, it's a good idea to keep it under the filo since it could help when you will roll it up.
- Brush the top of the filo sheets with melted butter, then cover them with the leftover 6 filo sheets, try to overlap the previous layer's attachment points.
- Heap up the room temperature rice pudding along the long edge of the layered filo pastries.
- Top it with the roasted plums.
- Sprinkle it with some brown sugar and cinnamon.
- Roll it up carefully, start from the edge where you positioned the filling.
- Turn it into a spiral shape, put it on a baking tray lined with parchment paper then place a cake ring around it.
- Cover the whole surface with melted butter and bake it at 180 °C till it will be golden brown and crispy.
- Finally, sprinkle the strudel with icing sugar before serving it.
Strudel Spiral - Photo by © Reka Csulak
