Kirschstrudel (Sweet Cherry Strudel)

Sweet cherries arrive in Austrian markets around late June, and for about six weeks, they're everywhere. Deep red, almost black when they're at their best, warm from the sun if you buy them at the Grünmarkt early enough in the morning. Kirschstrudel is what you make when you come home with too many. Not sour Weichseln, which have their own strudel and their own following, but the sweet ones that stain your fingers while you're pitting them and tempt you to eat half the bowl before you've started cooking.

Gretel always said the filling should be simple when the fruit is good. Toasted breadcrumbs to soak up the juice so the dough stays crisp, a little sugar, a whisper of cinnamon, lemon zest to keep the sweetness honest. That's it. The cherries do the rest. If you start adding almond paste or liqueurs or chocolate, you're telling the fruit it isn't enough, and good sweet cherries are always enough.

The dough is the same hand-stretched strudel dough I use for every strudel in my restaurant. Flour, warm water, a splash of oil, a few drops of vinegar. You knead it until it's smooth as silk, rest it under a warm bowl, then stretch it on a floured cloth until you can read a newspaper through it. This is the part that intimidates people, but I've watched first-time cooks stretch perfect dough after one try. The resting does the work. If your dough tears, it didn't rest long enough. Trust the gluten. It knows what to do.

This is a summer strudel, and I mean that seriously. Make it when cherries are in season, when they're firm and sweet and smell like July. If all you can find are those pale, hard, imported cherries that taste like nothing, wait. Make an Apfelstrudel instead. Austrian cooking is seasonal. That's part of what makes it honest.