What a joy to see this. My French mother learned to make a legendary strudel from a group of Hungarian women at Navy Pier in Chicago in the 1960's. Her husband, my father, was from Austria and this was something that my father loved, a memory from his country which he had fled just in time. I have many memories of fabulous dinner parties-- always with this legendary strudel (or sometimes a Baba Au Rhum) Her own method including hurling the dough at a cutting board on the floor 100 times. I remember waking up in the am to this sound. Instead of crumbs, she used vanilla wafers, and always always there was a light sprinkling of rum. She froze it without any difficulty.

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