“My grandfather used to say ‘and Magda Goebbels made a great strudel’ and I never knew what it meant until after he died my grandmother explained some magazine did a fluff interview with Magda Goebbels a few years before WW2 that included her strudel recipe and my grandfather, who hated the Nazis with the passion of 10,000 suns, thought it was an example of the media sanitizing evil people and he would use the phrase when someone asked him to overlook a bad person doing bad things and focus on the good.” — X user @NickyFrank30
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Magda Goebbels’s Strudel Recipe
Use strong white flour for a superior product.
Mix lukewarm water, oil, salt, and vinegar. Nothing breaks down bonds within gluten like acid. In the final product, the sourness will be undetectable.
Crack in an egg. You can’t make a tasty strudel without breaking some eggs.
Form the dough. Knead until it’s as elastic as the truth.
Set the dough out of sight and out of mind.
There is no yeast in strudel. You’re not trying to facilitate the rise of anything. Say this on record.
Let your dough bide its time.
Prepare your apples. Use all the bad ones you want. Add sugar until it’s palatable and cover.
Alternatively, fill it with whatever you feel like. If they ask you what’s in it, say “apples.” They won’t know any differently until it’s cut.
Roll out your dough. Start from a center position and push the edges as far out as you possibly can.
Use the backs of your closed fists. Don’t leave fingerprints. Let nothing get under your nails.
Reposition the dough slightly to the right. Repeat.
Don’t forget the melted butter. The layers will be dangerously thin, so it’s important to also keep them slick.
If any dough stretches over the furthest edges of the table, simply cut it off. It’s still your dough. But you don’t have to use it if it’s not to your advantage.
When it’s ready, your dough should be so thin that you can read a government-approved newspaper through it.
Discard the newspaper.
Sprinkle breadcrumbs over half the dough. This will keep anything unsavory from leaking out.
Roll up your dough around your filling, enclosing it like a spiral.
The word “strudel” means “whirlpool.” A spiral with a deadly downward pull.
Twist your strudel until it fits your pan.
As you work, remind us that you cook for your family. Family is so important. Real, good families, just like yours.
Smile.
Produce the completely baked strudel, covered with a tea towel. It’s not important where or how you baked it.
Serve in oversized slices, smothered in powdered sugar and cream. Go on. Have a piece. You can’t say no to just one piece, not after all this work.
If they try to misdirect you, return their attention to the strudel.
If they’ve eaten one piece to be polite, serve them a second helping.
Repeat.
Even if they refuse.
Repeat.
Even when they’re physically sick.
Repeat.
Repeat. Repeat. Repeat.
When you’re out of strudel, your job is done. Hold your head high. This is what you’ll be remembered for.
