What is traveling to a country and not tasting its traditional cuisine! I am highlighting here one Hungarian specialty: the Kürtős Kalács. Kürtős in Hungarian language means chimney and Kalács means cake… so that makes it
Chimney Cake. How is that for a bite!
Well, this one actually gave us company during over strolls in the streets of Hungary till it vanished into our hungry tummies. At one place in the streets of Buda castle hill, I was lucky to witness how this snack is made. The pre-prepared dough balls of milk, yeast, sugar, flour, eggs, salt, and butter were neatly stacked. I made a quick mental note of the flavoring ingredients there: nuts, cinnamon, almonds, coconut, hazelnuts, walnuts, sugar. However when I queried about the measure of the ingredients, the cooks around were tight lipped about it. The preparation time is more, while actual cooking time of the snack is just ten minutes or may be even less.
(Please do roll the mouse over the pictures.)
The lady in charge rolled flat the balls of dough, she then cut them into thin strips. The strips were then wound over what looked like wooden cylinders; she finally tucked the final tip of the strip under. After brushing with oil, these were rolled over flour and were then toasted over fire for five to six minutes.
We watched it, with full anticipation and eager eyes, changing color from light creamy yellow to light brown to a crispy brown. An irresistible flavor soon spread and that increased our hunger pangs. The lady took them out from the oven and with gentle taps removed the chimney cake from the cylinder. We were then asked what coat we would like to have… ‘chocolate with or without nuts’, or ‘sugar and cinnamon’ or ‘just plain’…more.
The wicked ‘we’ chose four different flavors, our minds scheming to take bites from each other’s chimney cake. Decency held us back from grabbing the rolls from her hand. With a polite ‘thank you’ and payment done we were on the streets merrily biting in to the delicious crispy cakes! Heavenly! I say!
