One of my favorite memory from Prague is walking on the old cobbled streets with this gorgeous Chimney Cake in my hand and not getting enough of it. I remember exploring the old town of Prague and accidentally coming across this open shop serving something that looked like fancy ice-cream to me. I was intrigued and decided to check it out.
Turns out it is what they call Trdelník ( which means a hollowed out log) or Chimney cake. It belongs to the family of spit cakes. It is made by depositing layers and layers of dough on a cylindrical spit. It is then covered in sugar and baked on an open fire. The sugar caramelizes and forms a nice crispy crush while the inside is still soft and fluffy. The dough tasted like a delicious mix between donuts and churros- both things I absolutely love.
Just like churros, the chimney cakes are rolled into a sugar mix while they’re still hot.
Once the chimney cake is ready, you get to pick your own filling and topping. That is the most exciting part! I decided to go with Nutella and ice-cream. As requested, they generously filled my chimney cake with Nutella and topped it with fresh soft serve ice-cream.
My favorite part about travelling is to taste local and traditional desserts. Prague blew me away with it’s chimney cake. If you’re travelling to Prague any time soon, make sure you get a taste of this incredible street dessert.
Have you ever tried a barbecued cake from Transylvania? If not, you’ll want to add the chimney cake to your bucket list of culinary curiosities.
Kürtőskalács originates in the Hungarian-speaking regions of Romania. It gets the nickname “chimney cake” from its cylindrical shape, which comes from rolling the dough around a wooden spit that rotates over hot cinders (similar to Lithuanian spit cake). As the cake “bakes,” its sprinkling of sugar melts into a sticky caramel coating. As soon as it’s finished, bakers dust the hot cake with cocoa powder, cinnamon, ground walnuts, or other toppings. The thin, hollow cake is perfect for when you’re on the go, as you can just tear off the warm, spiraling strips by hand. It tastes a little bit like a brioche, but with a firmer, less bready texture that’s pleasantly on the chewy side.
So where did this spit-roasted dessert come from? A 1450 manuscript from Heidelberg, Germany, describes similar cakes cooked on a spit over hot coals, but the earliest recipe for kürtőskalács dates back to 18th-century Transylvania. A 1784 cookbook by Countess Mária Mikes of Zabola lists it as “kürtős kalats à la Mrs. Poráni.” Though this version forgoes any sweetness, a sugar glaze has since been rolled into the cake’s recipe. Today, kürtöskalács is always served as a sweet treat.
Traditionally, kürtőskalács was a wintertime snack you’d find roasting over coals in sidewalk kiosks around Christmas, but its recent popularity made it a dish for all seasons in regions of Central and Eastern Europe.
The first known record that hints at a family of cakes baked by rotating spit over cinders dates back to medieval times (about 1450) and is found in a manuscript from Heidelberg. The description mentions a strip of raised dough that has to be wound in a helix shape around a baking spit, and brushed with egg yolk before baking.
The first known recipe of Kürtőskalács originates from Transylvania, included in the 1784 cookbook of Countess Mária Mikes of Zabola ("‘kürtős kaláts’ à la Mrs. Poráni"). It makes no mention, however, of sweetening of any kind in the preparation. A recipe from the cookbook written by Kristóf Simai in 1795 in Upper Hungary (present-day Slovakia) first mentioned "sweetening subsequent to baking”.Trdelnik from Szakolca is based on similar preparation, with the cake surface covered in chopped nuts (e.g. walnut, almond) before baking, and sugar that is added only subsequent to baking. Extract from ‘Rézi néni Szakácskönyve’(Aunt Rézi’s Cookbook), published in Szeged in the year of 1876, with the first recipe that applies sprinkling sugar on kürtőskalács before baking to achieve caramelized sugar glaze.
Almost 100 years passed before the first mention was made of the next step in the evolution of kürtőskalács, the appearance of a caramelized sugar glaze, in Aunt Rézi’s Cookbook written by Terézia Dolecskó in 1876, published in Szeged, Hungary.The recipe suggests "sprinkling sugar (sugar almond) on dough on spit a priory to baking". Due to the heat, the sugar is caramelized and also enters in what is known as Maillard reaction. The sugar glaze that melts to become caramel forms a continuous coat, also adds to firmness of cake. Shortly afterwards, pure sugar (not almond sugar) was applied to the dough's surface before baking, even with the omission of sweetening subsequent to baking. Ágnes Zilahi’s cookbook entitled Valódi Magyar szakácskönyv (The Real Hungarian Cookbook), which appeared in Budapest in 1892, presents such a recipe.
The first mention of additional toppings applied to the caramel glaze appears in Rézi néni szakácskönyve (Aunt Rézi’s Cookbook).The use of ground, chopped or candied walnuts applied as an additional topping became popular only in the late 20th century. As far as we know Pál Kövi’s cookbook, Erdélyi lakoma (Transylvanian Feast), which came out in 1980, seems to be the first source with the tip of applying this type of topping. The wide spectrum of cinnamon, coconut, cocoa, etc. toppings started to receive wide application only at the end of the century.
The current, most frequently baked variant of kürtőskalács evolved in Szeklerland in the first half of the 20th century. It is specific to this variant that the surface of the raw dough wrapped around spit is flattened out by the usual procedure of rolling (turning) it on flat surface sprinkled with granulated sugar. By this procedure the sequential winds of dough strip wrapped around spit are pressed together, rendering the cake smoother, more compact in structure and more elegant. First written record of this technological step appears in Mrs. Zathureczky, née Manci Zlech’s cookbook, which was published in Barót between 1934 – 1943. The cookbook entitled Erdélyi ízek (Flavors of Transylvania), which appeared in Csíkszereda (Szeklerburg/Miercurea-Ciuc), published by Proprint Press in 2007, specifies recipe of the sort.
Wherever you go in Hungary, you’re likely to find a hollow funnel cake called kürtőskalács, or chimney cake. The thin, sweet bread is covered in butter and granulated sugar before being roasted to a golden brown for just the right crunchy to soft ratio. The first known recipe dates back to Countess Maria Mikes in 1784, but, according to legend, kürtőskalács were around for centuries before that and once saved a city under siege from starvation.
Scholar and writer Balázs Orbán recorded the story of kürtőskalács in 1868. The dessert, he wrote, was invented by women in what is now Sekler Land, the Hungarian-speaking region of Transylvania, during the Mongol invasion in 1241. When the Mongols invaded the countryside, the people of Máréfalva retreated into caves in the hills above the village. The Mongols followed them, but they couldn’t get to the protected area. Instead, they laid siege to the caves to try and starve the Seklers out. As the siege dragged on, both sides started running out of food. The Seklers knew the army waiting outside had just as little resources as they did, however, and the women in the cave came up with a plan to fool the invaders.
They took all of their leftover flour and mixed it with water and ash from the fireplace to make it seem larger. Then, they rolled it on a long wooden pole and baked it, creating a bread that seemed large but was hollow on the inside. The Seklers held the food out of the caves for the enemy to see, essentially saying, “Look how well we still live, while you’re starving.” Seeing this, the Mongols saw no other choice and left.
Whether or not the legend is true (a version of similar hollow breads are found throughout Europe and likely date back to ancient Greeks), it’s come a long way since those early years. Hungarian nobility made it popular in the 18th century, but then popularity dipped during the years that the region was walled off by the USSR. After the fall of the wall when all of Romania — including the Transylvania region — once again opened to tourists, visitors from Hungary went to the Sekler-Hungarian villages, where locals sold kürtőskalács. The bread became the image of Transylvania and the Sekler-Hungarians in Hungary, and by the middle of the 1990s, it was popular all over both countries.
Photo: Kseniia Perminova/Shutterstock
Today, you can find kürtőskalács made with ground walnuts, powdered cinnamon, chocolate, and pretty much any other topping you can imagine. Sometimes the hollow middle is filled with whipped cream. The long, pipe-like bread (kürtö means “stovepipe” and kalács means “sweet bread”) is eaten in strips that easily tear off from its main body. It’s no longer served solely during holidays and celebrations, and can be found year round.
Other countries have different names for kürtőskalács. In Romania, it’s also known as cozonac secuiesc. German-Saxons call it schornstein kuchen. A variation that lacks the caramelized sugar glaze is popular in Slovakia and the Czech Republic, where it’s called trdelník. The Polish call it it kurtoszkalacz or węgierski kołacz.
You don’t need to go to Eastern Europe to taste one for yourself, though. Kürtőskalács are made around the world. A New York City-based company called Twister Cakes uses a traditional Transylvanian recipe and ships them nationwide.
Still, the best way to enjoy kürtőskalács is to buy it hot from a vendor in Transylvania or Hungary. Part of the fun is watching them make it, and nothing compares to a fresh-off-the-coals piece of kürtőskalács.
In Transylvania, you’ll find permanent stalls selling kürtőskalács made onsite in every Hungarian-speaking town and every tourist destination, from Tusnad to Poiana Brasov and Turda Gorge. In Hungary, Budapest is one of the best cities to buy kürtőskalács. Look for Vitéz Kürtős, which is run by a famous Transylvanian family from Székelyudvarhely and has permanent stalls in the Csillagvár Shopping Center in the 3rd District and at the Budapest Zoo. On Budapest’s main street, Váci utca, head to Molnár’s Kürtőskalács. Though you’ll pay more for it there, you can sit and enjoy a historical treat on one of the world’s best known and most attractive pedestrian shopping streets.