I saw and tried this cake for the very first time during my short trip to Hungary, and I was absolutely delighted with its taste! It looked so simple and it tasted so good, especially the walnut version! Later, I saw it's sold in other neighboring countries as well.
The thing that is important now is that I will show you how to make this chimney cake at your home! Believe it or not, it is possible to prepare Kurtosh Kalach and get (pretty much) the same taste without those special molds and ovens. And before that, you'll need to prepare the following ingredients:
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for the dough:
for the glaze:
and:
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- In a bowl, combine fresh yeast, warm milk,1 Tbsp of sugar and 1 Tbsp of flour. Mix until yeast is completely dissolved and set aside for a few minutes until yeast activates.
If using dry yeast, just combine those ingredients and continue to step 2. - Beat eggs, salt and the remaining 5 Tbsp of sugar, using a hand mixer, until sugar melts. Add butter and continue beating for a couple more minutes. Then, add the yeast mixture and half of the flour and start kneading. Knead by gradually adding the remaining flour until you get a smooth, non-sticky, medium-hard dough. You may need a bit more or less flour than listed: it all depends on the flour.
Cover the bowl with a kitchen towel and let the dough rise until it triples its volume. - Meanwhile, you can prepare the baking "molds". You'll need empty beer or soda cans for this. Take some aluminium foil and wrap the cans, folding the foil a bit on the bottom of the cans so that it doesn't slip down. You'll need approx. 12 cans for this quantity of ingredients.
4. Now, let's get back to the dough. Once it has risen, lightly sprinkle the worktop with some flour and re-knead the dough. Then, use a rolling pin to roll it out to 3-4mm thickness. Cut into 1,5-2 cm wide strips.
I cut out the edges first to get a rectangle and therefore more equal strips, but this is not needful. |
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As you can see on the photo below, I made the cakes smaller than usual and used 5 strips per cake, but you can do it as you please.
Repeat the procedure with the remaining dough. I got 12 cakes.
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Take them out from the oven and set aside for a few minutes to cool down.
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7. While the cakes are baking, prepare the glaze. Put sugar into a pot and add 150 ml water. Start heating it over high fire and cook for couple of minutes until sugar melts completely and you get a thick syrup.
8. Now when baked cakes have cooled down a bit, you can easily remove the cans. Roll each cake first into the syrup and then into topping of your choice. |
Enjoy and bon appétit!