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Christmas pudding, cranberry and apple strudel

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Prep time: 30 minutes, plus cooling time Cook time: 50 minutes

Serves 8

You can put whatever sweet Christmass­y things you have hanging around in this – thick cranberry sauce, little chunks of marzipan, Christmas pudding or bits of crumbled Christmas cake. Nuts, too (pecans, hazelnuts and walnuts are best). If you can find JR Feuilles de Filo use that – it’s much better than other widely available brands.

INGREDIENT­S

– 50g dried cranberrie­s – 2 tbsp port, or whatever sweet alcohol you have to hand

– 600g Granny Smith apples, peeled, cored and cut into very

thin slices

– ½ tsp ground

cinnamon (optional) – 40g soft light-brown

sugar

– finely grated zest of

½ lemon

– 150g Christmas

pudding, broken into pieces

– 45g marzipan, broken

into little nuggets (optional – you might not have any left over) – 250g filo pastry sheets – 55g butter, melted – icing sugar for dusting

METHOD

Heat the oven to 190C/180C fan/gas mark 6.

Put the cranberrie­s into a small saucepan with the alcohol. Set over a high heat and as

soon as you see the liquid bubbling pull it off the heat, stir and leave the cranberrie­s to plump up for 30 minutes.

Put the apple slices into a large bowl with the cinnamon, if using, the sugar and lemon zest and mix together. Add the pieces of Christmas pudding, marzipan chunks and cranberrie­s.

On a clean tea towel, lay one layer of filo pastry measuring roughly 38cm x 44cm (you may need to overlap two sheets, depending on their size) with the long side nearest you. Brush with melted butter and add another sheet (or two again). Butter the pastry and continue to layer and butter until you’ve used up all the pastry. Spoon the filling on to the pastry in a sausage shape about 5cm in from the long edge nearest to you. Try to distribute the bits of marzipan evenly and leave a few centimetre­s clear at each short end so that you can seal in the filling.

Using the tea towel to help you, roll the strudel up to enclose the filling, like a Swiss roll. Turn the ends

underneath to seal the strudel. Lift the tea towel with the strudel on it to a large baking sheet or one of the metal trays from your oven. Carefully push the strudel off the tea towel on to the tray, ending up with the pastry seam underneath. It may look messy, but filo pastry always looks good once it’s cooked and sifted with icing sugar so don’t worry.

Brush the strudel with the rest of the butter and bake for 40 minutes, or until golden brown. Leave to cool to room temperatur­e. Dust with icing sugar before serving.

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