Vegan Apple and Rhubarb Strudel
This Vegan Apple and Rhubarb Strudel is a fun twist on a classic Austrian dish. Serve it with vegan ice cream or crème fraîche. Get the recipe below.
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Vegan pastry recipes
Just because you’re vegan doesn’t mean you should miss out on tasty pastry based desserts.
The good news is that the pastry used to make a strudel is filo pastry. A type of pastry made from flour, water, oil and white vinegar. Because of this it’s perfect for vegan recipes!
I like to use filo to top pies like this Samosa Pie and my Butter Bean and Vegetable Pie but it also works perfectly for strudel – a delicious dessert that is packed full of fruity flavour.
A twist on a classic Austrian dessert
The apple strudel is a classic Austrian dessert that is made by encasing a spiced apple, raisin and walnut filling in layers of filo pastry. You’ll find apple strudel in Viennese cafés where coffee and cake culture is strong!
I, however, have decided to take the traditional recipe and make a few swaps. I supplement the apples with rhubarb and use vanilla and cardamom as my spices. I leave out the raisins altogether but keep the walnuts for some crunch.
The result is a floral filling that works perfectly with the crispy layers of filo pastry.
How to make a vegan apple and rhubarb strudel
There are two steps to making a rhubarb strudel – first, make the filling and second, wrap the filling in filo pastry.
To make the filling you will need to gather your ingredients, they are:
- Rhubarb
- Dessert apples (don’t be tempted to use cooking apples as they will just turn to mush. Use something like a Granny Smith, Golden Delicious or Honeycrisp.)
- Caster sugar
- Vanilla pod
- Cardamom pods
- Walnuts
For the pastry you just need sheets of filo, some vegan butter and yet more caster sugar.
Once you’ve got your filling ingredients together you simply heat them in a pan for 10 minutes until the fruit just starts to soften. Place this to one side to cool before assembling.
When you’re ready to assemble, lay out your filo, brushing butter and caster sugar over each layer that forms the base.
Filo pastry does dry out quite quickly so you can always cover it with a damp tea towel to stop that from happening. Spoon over the filling then encase in the filo.
To finish all you need to do is brush over more butter and sprinkle with sugar. It then bakes in a hot oven for 25 minutes until the filo is crisp and golden brown.
I like to dust mine with a little icing sugar before serving too.
Make ahead
Strudel is a great dessert to make ahead of time. In fact, you can even make it up to a day before you want to cook it. All you need to do is to brush it with butter to stop the filo pasty from drying out and then ensuring it’s wrapped up and chilled.
Serving suggestions
The classic serving is crème fraîche but I prefer ice cream or whipped cream. Custard works well too. If you need a vegan custard recipe then don’t worry you can find one here.
The recipe
Vegan Apple and Rhubarb Strudel
Ingredients
- 150 g caster sugar
- 1 vanilla pod
- 4 cardamom pods
- 3 dessert apples roughly 200 g once peeled and diced
- 200 g rhubarb chopped into 1 cm pieces
- 100 g walnuts chopped
- 8 sheets filo pastry
- 50 g vegan butter melted
- 1 tbsp icing sugar
Instructions
- Pre-heat your oven to 200 C/ 400 F/gas 6.
- Add 100g of the sugar, seeds from the vanilla pod, cardamom, rhubarb and apple to a sauce pan and cook for 10 – 15 minutes until the fruit becomes tender.
- Remove from the heat and leave to cool. If there is a lot of liquid, remove the fruit only using a slotted spoon.
- Remove the cardamom pods.
- Stir the walnuts through the fruit mix.
- Line a baking tray with baking paper.
- Place a sheet of filo pastry on to the tray then brush with melted butter.
- Sprinkle over 1 tsp of caster sugar.
- Repeat the process with 3 more layers of filo pastry.
- Divide the fruit mix along the shorter edge of the pastry sheets and roll into a log, tucking in the ends as you roll.
- Brush with more melted butter and sprinkle over the last of the sugar.
- Bake for 25 mins, or until the pastry is golden brown and crisp.
- Once cool, dust with the icing sugar and then serve.
More dessert recipes
If you like this recipe, perhaps you’ll like some of my other favourite dessert recipes using apple or rhubarb. And yes, they’re all vegan!
Enjoy!