Apple Strudel

In honor of Bryan and Ellen being together, I decided to try my hand at apple strudel. All by myself, no favorite house elf to help me ;). I would like more practice at making the dough thin. That's the hardest part. Getting the right amount of butter brushed on the pastry, and getting down a technique sort of like a backwards cat kneading motion to stretch it out from beneath. I used the dough recipe from my Dr. Oetker 'German Baking Today', and the filling from 'Baking Illustrated'. I definitely liked their idea of soaking the raisins in Calvados before adding to the apples. I must have done a good job, because my coworkers snarfed it down, and I even got a hug from one of them. I have to say the house smelled so good while these were baking, I wished I could have bottled the scent and sold it as perfume. The combo of Macintosh and Red Cortland apples seems to be a winner. It was pretty tasty.