HISTORY

Hungarian pastry also known stove cake or Hungarian wedding cake. It is baked on a tapered cylindrical spit over an open fire. Originally from Transylvania, it is famous as Hungary's oldest pastry. Chimney Cake is sold in bakeries, pastry shops and even street vendors are selling them on street corners, carnivals and fairs.

Chimney Cake consists of a thin yeast pastry ribbon wound around a wooden cylinder, heavily sprinkled with sugar, thus becoming a helix shaped cylindrical pastry or a pastry roll that sometimes tapers very slightly towards the end. The pastry is baked on a hand-turned, tapered, wooden spit, rolled slowly on the wooden cylinder above an open fire. The dough is yeast-raised, flavored with sweet spices, the most common being cinnamon, topped with walnuts or almonds, and sugar. The sugar is caramelized on the kürtöskalács surface, creating a sweet, crisp crust.

Chimney Cake originates from Transylvania, a historical region in present-day Romania with a sizable Hungarian population.

The German Baumkuchen may be directly related to the Chimney Cake, from which it is said to derive via the Hungarian wedding cake.