Budapest: Buda Castle … Kürtőskalács

When the group left Matthias Church, Mui and I stayed behind … advising Valeria that we would be making our own way back to the Rinda. This had been our plan all along. It worked out well and I was able to wander around the different parts of the church at leisure and take photos from different vantage points.

When we left the church, it was around 11:30a. Time to try a local pastry known as the chimney cake.

We followed our noses — there was a sweet, cinnamon infused aroma wafting on the air — to a nearby café/bakery and found what we were looking for there.

Kürtőskalács is the name by which this pastry is known in Hungary. The sweet dough is wrapped around a cylindrical baking spit, rolled in sugar, and placed over a charcoal fire … though if the baking is being done inside, then electricity has to be used to fuel the fire. Finally, when the chimney cake takes on a golden brown hue, the baker adds a coating. That done, the pastry is slipped off the spit … steam rising from it … much like smoke does from a chimney. Hence the name.

The bakery we went to had an outdoor set up, so our chimney cake — oversized and easily shareable by two people — was baked over a charcoal fire. When it was ready to be coated, we opted for the traditional cinnamon. And then we sat down as a small table outside and started tearing into our special treat. The outside of the pastry is supposed to be crispy. Ours was crispy-ish. The inside, which is supposed to be soft and a little doughy, was too thick and perhaps a little undercooked. It definitely did not unfurl apart like it was supposed to do. Nothing wrong with the taste, though.

We’ll try our luck again tomorrowRead more