Crispy airy twirl with apples is a worthy Moldovan answer to Viennese strudel and a nostalgic reference to distant childhood. The unusual, funny name of the baked goods reflects the way the apple filling is “packed” into plastic dough - it is literally spun, folded into several layers and imitating a puff structure.
If the dough is prepared and kneaded correctly, a paper-thin layer emerges from under the rolling pin, capable of holding fragrant apple cubes. But you should not add them in excess, otherwise the juice that has been released will leak out, burn on the baking sheet and give the dessert a bitter taste.
Ingredients
- vegetable oil 60 g
- water 60 ml
- salt 0.25 tsp.
- sugar 2 tbsp. l.
- chicken egg 1 pc.
- chicken yolk 1 pc.
- wheat flour 300-350 g
- apples 5-6 pcs.
Preparation
1. Pour room temperature water and odorless oil into a deep bowl. Shake with a spoon.
2. Beat in the egg. Add a tablespoon of sugar and salt. Stir until the sugar and salt dissolve and the egg is evenly distributed throughout the mixture.
3. Sift the flour into another container in advance. Add a little at a time to the rest of the ingredients. At the initial stage, take a spoon and mix the added flour with the liquid ingredients. Add flour until it becomes difficult to mix with a spoon. Transfer the thickened dough to a dusted board, and gradually add flour, knead until you obtain a dense dough that does not stick to your hands and the table.
4. Cover the finished lump of dough with a towel and let rest for 10-15 minutes.
5. Then divide the dough into four pieces. You should end up with 4 rolls of small diameter. Cover with a towel to prevent chapping.
6. Prepare the filling. Wash and dry apples with dense pulp and a sweet and sour taste. Remove peel and seeds. Cut into small cubes. Transfer to a deep bowl. Add the remaining spoonful of sugar and stir. You can add a pinch of ground cinnamon.
7. Roll out a piece of dough into a very thin translucent layer. Dust the board with flour to prevent the dough from sticking.
8. Place a quarter of the apple filling on the wide edge. Fold the sides towards the center.
This recipe for apple twirls has been around for many years. Even in the old days, Moldovan women passed it on from generation to generation. The vertuta dough comes out extraordinary. It is obedient and very easy to work with. Simple baking always helps housewives in the kitchen. So I offer a simple recipe for vertuta. Cheese cheese is traditionally used as a filling. But at that moment I had apples in the refrigerator, which were useful to me. The apple filling gives the baked goods juiciness and slight sourness. I hope the result will surprise and delight you.
Ingredients for the dough:
Unrefined vegetable oil – 200 ml
Hot water – 180 ml
Soda - a pinch, on the tip of a knife
Flour - how much dough will take
Filling ingredients:
Apples – 2-3 pcs.
Cinnamon - to your taste
Sugar – 170 g
Raisins – 50 g
Preparation:
Pour vegetable oil into a bowl. Add a pinch of baking soda at about the tip of the knife.
Pour in a good amount of hot water. And start sifting the flour on top.
You will need enough flour to make the dough soft. It will take about 400 g of flour. Keep an eye on it and test it with your hand as you knead the dough. It will be soft and tender, do not flour it so as not to spoil it.
As with any dough, let it sit for 15-20 minutes to rest. Let all the ingredients get to know each other.
Let's prepare the ingredients for the filling. Peel the apples and soak the raisins in warm water. Apples can be sprinkled with lemon juice to prevent them from darkening. Drain the raisins and dry them.
Now let's start rolling out the dough. From such products I get 2 vertutas. Therefore, I divide the dough into 2 equal parts with a knife and begin to roll it out. If you are preparing verita for the first time, then it makes sense to divide the dough into 3-4 koloboks. This will make it easier for you to twist the twist.
Grease the surface of the table with vegetable oil and roll out one part of the dough with a rolling pin. Next, start stretching the dough across the table with your fingers, as if gluing it. It turns out almost transparent.
Grate the apples on top of the entire surface of the dough, sprinkle generously with sugar and ground cinnamon. Also add raisins.
Wrap the vurtuta into a roll and roll it into a ball, it looks like.
Line a baking dish with paper, lay out the apple twirl, and sprinkle sugar and cinnamon on top again. Place in a preheated oven for 30 minutes. The oven temperature should be at least 180 degrees.
Cut the finished vertuta into pieces and treat it to your relatives and friends.
Bon appetit!
Vertuta is a dough roll that is common in Moldavian cuisine. The dough for vertuta is the same as for placintas. The filling for vertuta can be sweet or salty. Most often it is prepared with feta cheese, cottage cheese, meat and apples. The vertuta can be fried, as I did, or you can place it on a baking sheet and bake in the oven.
Ingredients
To prepare vertuta with apples we will need:
250 ml kefir;
1 tbsp. l. Sahara;
1 tbsp. l. vegetable oil;
0.5 tsp. salt;
0.5 tsp. soda;
flour (how much dough will take).
For filling:
1 kg apples;
sugar.
Cooking steps
Divide the dough into 7 equal pieces. From this amount of dough you should have 7 twirls. Roll each piece of dough into a thin rectangle, evenly lay out a thin layer of apples and roll the dough into a roll.
Roll the roll into a rope and stretch it lengthwise. Roll the stretched and twisted roll as shown in the picture.
At the end of cooking, the hot vertuta with apples can be greased with butter if desired.
Bon appetit!
Step-by-step instructions for the recipe for Vertuta with apples
- I prepared the dough in a bread maker. Pour warm water into a container, add egg and vegetable oil.
Add sifted flour and salt. Set to "dough" mode. If you prepare the dough by hand, crack the egg in water, add vegetable oil, mix well. Add flour and salt, knead the dough - quite stiff. Knead for 10-15 minutes until the dough is smooth and does not stick to your hands.
Let the dough rest. After kneading, leave the dough for 30 minutes to “rest” (wrap in cling film).
Wash the apples, remove peels and seeds. Grate on a coarse grater, sprinkle with lemon juice. Add powdered sugar, mix and leave for 20-30 minutes.
Now comes the most important part of making vertuta: the dough! You must first roll it out into a layer, approximately 30x40 cm. Next, stretch the dough in different directions with your hands. The dough should be very, very thin. The thinner the better! If it tears a little, it's okay.
Squeeze the apples from the released juice. Spread throughout the dough. Sprinkle with breadcrumbs (to absorb excess moisture).
Roll the dough with apples tightly into a roll and roll it into a spiral.
Place the vertuta on a baking sheet lightly greased with butter. Brush with yolk (dilute a little with water). Bake in the oven at 180 degrees until golden brown (35-40 minutes). Grease the hot vertuta with butter.
Allow the pie to cool completely and serve with tea, cutting into pieces. Very tasty, crispy dough!
Bon appetit!
Each national cuisine has a number of dishes that define its “face”, characteristic features and characteristics. When it comes to baking, Crimean Tatar chebureks, Russian pancakes and rasstegai, Ukrainian crisps, and Moldavian vertuts immediately come to mind. You can prepare all these delicacies yourself - if only you have the recipes and the desire!
About the subject of conversation
The topic of our article today is apple twirl. What it is, Moldovan housewives, especially those living in rural areas, will be happy to explain in detail and even show you. After all, it is in the villages that the art of preparing national dishes has been preserved in its original form. The same mamalyga, without which not a single meal was once complete, is rarely cooked in the cities. And they don’t really bother themselves with baking either, especially with the abundance in stores. And only in the village can you be offered real vertuta with apples or pumpkin, feta cheese or potatoes, taken out of the oven, prepared according to all the rules, observing the necessary “technical” subtleties.
Moldavian vertuta are prepared from a special dough that is rolled out, or rather, stretched very thinly, like filling is placed inside the layer, then it is rolled up into a roll - hence the name “vertuta” baked goods. With apples, nuts, jam, i.e. sweet minced meat, they are served as a dessert, often sprinkled with powdered sugar. And with a more satisfying filling they go as an independent dish or with soups, zama, borscht - instead of bread. As a rule, a lot of eggs are placed in the dough and vegetable oil is added. Therefore, vertuta with apples and other minced meat is not so much baked as fried, which makes it especially tasty.
Vertutas with kefir
The recipe for this baking is quite inexpensive, accessible to almost every family, and the result will delight all lovers of dough products. You will need half a liter of kefir, 2 eggs, a pinch of salt, 2 tablespoons of sugar and enough flour to knead an elastic, not very stiff dough. Roll it into a ball, cover it with a napkin and let it rest for half an hour. In the meantime, get on with the filling.
To make your vertuta with apples tastier, the recipe (photo attached) suggests adding a little cinnamon to the apples, which should be cut into small cubes, and vanilla for an appetizing smell. When the dough has risen, cut small pieces from it, roll into flat cakes and, adding flour, first roll out with a rolling pin, and then evenly stretch with your hands into rounded thin layers. Each sheet from which vertuta with apples is baked must be sprinkled with sunflower oil in the recipe. Then distribute the filling evenly, sprinkle it with sugar, roll the layers, pinch the edges at both ends. Brush the top with oil again. Oil the baking tray well too, place the twirls on it, place in a preheated oven and bake until done at a temperature of 190-200 degrees for about 20 minutes. When the baked goods have cooled, sprinkle the baked goods with powdered sugar.
Special vertuts
Vertuta with apples made from puff pastry is very tasty. Of course, it takes a little more time to prepare it than baking according to the previous recipe. But your efforts will pay off, you'll see! You will need 500 g of sifted premium flour, a glass of water, and a little salt. Knead the dough, roll into a ball, let it brew. Then roll it into a flat cake. Place a piece of butter inside, roll it into an envelope, and roll it out again. Wrap the dough in a bag and put it in the refrigerator for 30 minutes. Then repeat the operation twice more. In total you should roll in 100 g of butter. After the last time in the refrigerator, the dough is ready to work. Roll out or stretch thin layers, add filling, roll. Beat the egg with sugar and brush the vertutas placed on a greased baking sheet with this mixture. Bake them until done. Make lemon glaze: take 100 g of powdered sugar, a tablespoon of freshly squeezed lemon juice and the same amount of hot water. Add the liquid ingredients to the powder, rub thoroughly until you get a homogeneous mass. Cover the twirls with it.
A few words about the filling
And now a few words about what you can put in the twirls, besides apples. Firstly, apple-curd mass. Grind the cottage cheese through a sieve or mince it twice. Add egg, vanilla sugar and regular sugar to it, grind well. Mix with chopped apples.
Apple and carrot filling can be used. Grate the carrots, add the apple, add salt, and sauté in vegetable oil with a little water.
The pumpkin and apple filling is also good. So experiment, be interested, try!
