If you saw the 2009 film Inglourious Basterds, you probably remember it for it’s wide range of iconic moments. There’s the scene when the audience gets a chance to see the “Bear Jew” for the first time, the scene when Shosanna Dreyfus (played by Melanie Laurent) hides in the basement of a farmhouse to avoid being caught by Hans Landa (in an Academy Award-winning performance by Christophe Waltz) and the infamous strudel scene where Landa and Shoshana finally come face to face.
In the scene, Shosanna somehow ends up seated across from Landa, the man who killed her family. During the electric few minutes they share, the audience (and Dreyfus) wonders if Landa knows who she is while they eat strudel together. The Nazi even slows the agony by insisting they wait for cream. Does he know that the woman seated across from him isn’t who she says she is? Is he just toying with her? The audience is left to wonder as they go their separate ways.
What we don’t have to wonder about is that strudel. It looks impeccable. Now, Youtube sensation “Binging with Babish” (aka Andrew Rea) has decided to help us bake the famous, flaky pastry for ourselves. In the past, he’s brought us step by step directions on how to prepare the “Moist Maker” from Friends, the “Big Kahuna Burger” from Pulp Fiction.
Even though he claims to have never made strudel before, Rea is more than up for the task. First comes the dough. It begins with bread flour and vegetable oil before the addition of a little bit of lemon juice. He mixes it up lightly before adding warm water. He then folds it together to make a “semi-cohesive dough”.
Now comes the part of the process where viewers can get out all of their aggression. After putting a bit of flour down a cutting board, Rea “kneads the hell out of” it. He follows this process by making the filling (apples, cinnamon, sugar, raisins, lemon zest and lemon juice) before putting it all together to make one mighty tasty looking strudel.
The verdict? It looks good enough to eat…with creme.
