Aldi Cherry Mascarpone Strudel (Specially Selected) Review
Author’s Note: The following review is my own ridiculous opinion. I don’t work for Aldi. Nobody paid me to write this review. I have no affiliation with Specially Selected brand nor Aldi.
Maybe Goya was also a strudel fan.
I bought this frozen Cherry Mascarpone Strudel from Aldi last year, and I’m just now getting around to trying it. This is a seasonal product in my local Aldi, and I usually only see it in stores once or twice a year. FYI: they also have an apple version of the same pastry!
This has got to be the looooongest pastry I’ve ever seen. Mine was about a foot long. I think it must have gotten bent at some point in its transatlantic journey, because it had a cute little dimple in the middle. The dimple was gone after baking, however — the pastry seems to rise and puff dramatically, like an angry cat during a fight.
Anyway, I digress. Like Aldi’s Deutsche Küche brand frozen strudels, this one slides out of the box completely unwrapped and unprotected. Just a naked, frozen log of raw pastry. I don’t know what Aldi has done to appease the freezer gods, but somehow mine never have any freezer burn or damage, despite this odd lack of plastic wrap.
Here is what my pastry looked like after baking. If you read my previous review of the Deutsche Küche strudels, you know that I accidentally burned those. I somehow burnt this strudel, too. How does this keep happening. *sigh* This must be the eternal strudel karma at work.
The burnt product isn’t Aldi’s fault. I inadvertently turned the oven timer off, and then it kept baking a bit longer than I expected. Alas.
I had a little ooze from the filling, but nothing catastrophic. A little charring along the edges of the pastry. It still tasted good.
The finished pastry is super crisp and super flaky. As previously mentioned, it puffs up while baking, so the whole pastry gets a bit bigger and fluffier. So many beautiful layers.
Here is a cross-section. There’s a generous amount of the cherry filling inside, and about half as much of the mascarpone cheese filling. The layers of pastry get softer and moister towards the center, as they should.
Aldi does cherry-stuff really well. It had to be said. These morello cherries are fabulous. They’re deeply flavorful, rather than just “sweet.” While not sour, there’s enough tartness to round out the flavor profile. I didn’t find many large cherry pieces, but there were lots of chopped fragments that made it feel like a quality product — instead of just generic cherry goo. You know.
I also appreciate the absence of artificial colors — the deep red color is just the natural cherry goodness. Hooray. More about the ingredients later.
I did feel the mascarpone cheese was sweeter than it needed to be. But not obnoxiously so. It’s smooth like a thick icing, with just a hint of grainy cheese-curd texture. I enjoyed it, but I enjoyed the cherries more. I was glad there wasn’t tons of the mascarpone to drown out the cherry taste.
The outer pastry isn’t sweet at all, but the filling more than compensates for this. Because of the restrained sweetness, I think this would be a solid candidate for a breakfast or brunch menu. I would serve the pastry whole, because the appearance of the long strudel is so much more elegant than the sliced pieces. Maybe it’s the novelty, but I think it looks more sophisticated than short strudels.
Confession time: I did struggle to eat this neatly. I tried eating my strudel with a fork, which sent whisper-thin fragments of crisp pastry flakes scattering everywhere.
And, I tried picking the strudel up — like a donut — and biting into it. This caused the cherry filling to ooze out and run down my face, until I looked like the monster in Saturn Devouring His Son by the painter Francisco Goya.
Well, I bet you can’t unsee that.
Maybe Goya was secretly just a cherry strudel fan.
I do really love the big, shiny sugar grains on top of the strudel. They are enormous, and super crunchy. Great texture contrast to the rest of the strudel.
Ingredients in Aldi Cherry Mascarpone Strudel
Here are the ingredients from the label:
- Morello Cherries
- Wheat Flour
- Vegetable Shortening (Palm Oil, Water, Vegetable Oil [Canola, Palm], Mono- and Diglycerides)
- Water
- Sugar
- Mascarpone Cream Cheese (Cream, Citric Acid [Acidifier])
- Low Fat Soft Cheese [Skim Milk, Culture]
- Invert Sugar
- Corn Starch
- Wheat Starch
- Food Starch-Modified
- Salt
- Natural Flavor
- Xanthan Gum
- Concentrated Lemon Juice
- Glucose Syrup
- Citric Acid
I’m not excited by the vegetable shortening. I would rather have butter. And, although I’m glad there is no artificial flavor, I could do without the “natural flavor.” But, all things considered, this is not a bad ingredient list for a mass-produced pastry. I love that cherries are the first ingredient.
This strudel is made in Germany.
Baking Instructions
The only cooking instructions are for conventional or convection oven. I baked mine at 425 degrees for… erm, more than 30 minutes. Not sure how much longer, because I accidentally turned the timer off. If you don’t want to end up with a burnt strudel like me, check on it after 30 minutes, and watch for dark edges!
I used parchment to line my baking pan, and I had no problems with the pastry sticking. It crisped nicely on the bottom, and slid right off, like a pro! I didn’t use any non-stick spray, either.
Nutrition Facts in Cherry Mascarpone Strudel from Aldi
There are six servings per package of 100 grams each. Each serving has 270 calories, 13 grams of fat, and 4 grams of protein. There are 17 grams of sugar, of which 13 are “added sugars.” Honestly, not bad for a dessert item! You also get 2 grams of fiber.
If the whole strudel is 12 inches long (an estimate, because I did not measure), dividing into 6 servings would make each strudel slice just 2 inches long. Hmm.
Price and Servings
The 21.2 ounce frozen strudel cost $3.99 at my local Aldi. Assuming six servings, this is 67 cents per serving. Per ounce, the strudel costs 19 cents.
Shelf-Life
My strudel had a “best-by” date approximately a year after purchase.
After baking, I stored my strudel in my refrigerator (wrapped in foil around the parchment) for about 4 days. It’s definitely not as good after refrigeration, but it was still edible (and tasty) for a few days. For entertaining purposes, I would bake this no more than a couple hours before serving.
Dramatic Conclusion
I would buy this strudel again. Yes! I loved the high-quality cherry filling and the crisp, puffy pastry exterior. Plus, it’s a good value. It’s convenient to keep on-hand in the freezer, and (relatively) easy to prepare. Maybe I won’t even burn the next one. Goals.
The End.
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