Which is the best part in the cottage cheese strudel? The creamy cottage cheese filling, of course! The phyllo sheets are only protecting the filling from falling into pieces, the essential is the creamy filling. So in this cottage cheese strudel, the best part will be the thickest layer. Read my easy Hungarian cottage cheese strudel (túrós rétes) recipe.

This recipe is simplified. You don’t have to roll anything, we will just layer the ingredients on each other. That’s why it’s easy to make.

My only concern was fat in my mom’s recipe, but we need only one tablespoon. I asked my mom, can I use coconut oil instead of fat? Her reaction was “If you want to make it with coconut oil, don’t make it”. Okay, sooooory mom.

Maybe one day, I’ll try it with coconut oil. Psst, don’t tell my mom.

Interested in Hungarian food? In this post, you’ll see plenty of it 😉

Tips and tricks before starting:

All of the dairy ingredients should be at room temperature, so make sure to take them out from the fridge 1-2 hours before starting. This way the diaries combine better, become smoother and will help to get the perfect texture and taste.

Before cutting the lemon in half, wash the skin so that any dirt or bacteria residing on the surface will not be transferred to the fruit’s interior.

Every oven works differently, so 1st time check the strudel before the required baking time. I baked it on 175 °C (347 °oF), but maybe your oven is stronger, so be careful not to overbake the strudel.

I use a Bosch kitchen machine for beating everything because I have to work less this way. The mixing is also working well manually 🙂 I know because I didn’t always have the kitchen machine.

Preparation time: 40 min

Baking time: 30 min

Ingredients for 20×30 cm baking tray:

• 1 package of phyllo (filo) sheets
• 1 tablespoon fat, melted
• 3 + ¾ cup (750 g) cottage cheese
• ½ cup (100 g) brown sugar
• zest of 1 lemon
• juice of half lemon
• 4 eggs (3 for the filling, 1 for the top)
• 3 heaping tablespoons sour cream (2 for the filling, 1 for the top)
• ½ cup (100 g) raisin

How to make the cottage cheese strudel?

The creamy cottage cheese filling

Soak the raisins into the water and clean them.

In a medium bowl (I used the bowl of my Bosch kitchen machine) mix 3 eggs with the brown sugar, then add cottage cheese, lemon zest and juice, 2 heaping tablespoons sour cream and finally the cleaned raisins. The filling should be runny, not solid. Set it aside.

Whisk the 1 remained egg in a cup and mix together with 1 heaping tablespoon sour cream. This will be the last layer of the strudel. Set it aside.

Assembling the strudel

Preheat the oven to 175 °C (347 °F). Grease the baking tray with melted fat (not all of it) and set aside. I used a 20×30 cm baking dish. You can make it in a bigger one, in that case, you might need more fat for greasing and the cottage cheese layer won’t be that thick like this one.

This is the part when you have to pay attention, the rest will be easy peasy. The phyllo dough can dry out easily if you work too slowly and forget to cover it. You will need 1 dry and 1 damp dish towel to avoid drying out.

Lay the dry dish towel on your worktop, roll out and place the phyllo sheets on it and cover them with the wet dish towel.

Uncover the sheets, cut them to fit into the baking dish. It won’t be a problem if it’s a bit bigger or if the sheets rip, everything will be okay in the oven. You can create layers from the pieces as well.

I had 8 sheets, so 4 for the bottom and 4 as the cover. Place the 1st layer into the baking tray (after removing the sheet, cover the rest of the phyllo sheets with the dish towel), grease it with the melted fat and repeat it with other 3 sheets.

Now it’s the time for the cottage cheese filling, pour it on the top of the 4 sheets.

Let’s place the rest of the phyllo sheets. One layer sheet, grease it with fat and repeat.

Cover the top with the egg and sour cream mixture.

Place it into the oven and bake for 30-35 minutes until the top is golden brown. The top will rise a bit, but it will be flat after removing it from the oven.

Wait an hour and you can dust with powdered sugar. Aaaaand it’s ready to serve. It’s good when it’s lukewarm, don’t have to wait until it’s cold.

Don’t store in the fridge, otherwise, it’ll have a different consistency. It’s enough if you store it in a cold space.

I hope I can bring back your strudel experience from Hungary.

Almost forgot to ask… Have you been to Budapest? Have you tried the cottage cheese or another kind of strudels? Or other traditional Hungarian food?

Would you like to try out another snack with cottage cheese? Bake the cheesy salty sticks and your guests will be very happy 😉

Bake the strudel and let me know your opinion. In case you post it on social media, don’t forget to use my hashtag: #alizswonderland.

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