Kürtöskalács - Hungarian chimney cake

This Hungarian speciality is one of my favourites from my motherland, especially because although it is possible to get a whole range of frozen, cupboard and dairy items from Easter European shops, it's the bakery products that are almost impossible to get, and for which I occasionally get nostalgic homesick yearnings for. This recipe came about when I shared Buzzfeed's awesome "33 Hungarian Foods the World Should Know and Love", and lamented the things I missed most, in particular kürtöskalács. It's difficult to describe the appeal of this Hungarian cake, which is actually an enriched bread dough, and non-Hungarians might wonder what the point of the chimney shape is all about. I will explain all of this in English, and also give a Hungarian version of the recipe at the end. 
A magyar verzió található a blogbejegyzés végén.

For any non-Hungarians, kürtöskalács (koor-tewsh kal-aatch) is a type of sweet bread that is sold at market stalls all year round. You might have seen it when visiting the Czech Republic, under the name of Trdelník. It is particularly tasty during winter time, when it's a lovely, warm, sweet treat, especially when it's rolled in cinnamon sugar. I love the way it rolls off in a spiral form, and it's crunchy and sweet on the outside, but soft and warm on the inside. It's also popular in the summer and popular at any festivals or fairs, but I decided to try this recipe during Easter time, because this is a time when traditionally rich, sweet breads full of butter and eggs are usually made, as part of breaking Lent. Also, I wanted to do something different than the other Easter breads I tried before. 

This recipe almost didn't happen, because although some Hungarian cakes are very tricky to make (see no. 8 Dobostorta), I really thought that kürtöskalács was impossible to make at home without the specialist mould and rack over the traditional open charcoal fire, which gives it that real authentic taste and caramelisation of the sugar round the outside. 


Wooden kürtöskalács moulds

Kürtöskalács cooking on a traditional metal mould

Authentic kürtöskalács cooking on an open spit

After bemoaning my situation on the internet, my Auntie came to the rescue and told me about this recipe from a Hungarian ladies' web magazine. Entitled "How to make kürtöskalács at home", I was intrigued, and knew I had to try it out when I saw their ingenious DIY solution for how to make the cylindrical moulds - beer cans! You wrap up the cans in greased aluminium foil to protect against the designs on your can being transferred to the bread, and wrap the dough around it as you would with a normal mould.

I wasn't sure about the stability of the dough in standing cans, and I didn't fancy laying the dough directly onto the baking sheet, so I decided to try and recreate my own rack in the oven. I threaded metal kebab skewers through the cans, and then rested them on a 30 cm (12") x 20 cm (8") x 5 cm (2") baking tray that I already had, but a roasting pan could also do the job. Although there was not much space to do more than three at a time, the home made rack seemed to do the trick, and the kalácses came out tasting pretty authentic!

Ingredients (makes six):

• 500 g flour
• 100 g butter (melted and cooled to room temperature)
• 250 ml milk
• 2 whole eggs + 2 egg yolk
• 4 tablespoons sugar (or more to taste)
• 1 packet dried yeast
• caster sugar for rolling
• extra butter or oil for greasing the cans

Preparation time: 20 minutes mixing and kneading + 1 hour proving time + 15 minutes baking

Method:

1. Sift the flour and add the dried yeast and sugar, before adding the eggs and yolks. Warm up the milk a little to body temperature and add to the bowl with the melted butter, and work together into a smooth ball. 
For anyone using fresh yeast, or yeast that requires activation in liquid, you can do this in the milk. Warm up the milk first to roughly body temperature (37 C) using a quick blast in the microwave. Be careful - if the milk is too cold, the yeast will not wake up, but if you go above 46 C because then the yeast will die and your bread will not rise!). Dissolve a spoonful of the sugar from the recipe in the milk, and then stir in the yeast vigorously. Leave the mixture in a warm place, for about 10 minutes. If the activation has worked, you should see some bubbles on the top of the liquid. Once the yeast is activated, pour the milk-sugar-yeast solution into the rest of the dry ingredients, and mix together the ingredients until it forms a ball. 

2. Turn our onto a floured surface and knead for about ten minutes, or put into a mixer with a dough hook.

3. Cover the bowl with clingfilm, and leave to rest in a warm place for about one hour or until doubled in size. 

4. While the dough is proving, you can prepare your home made kalács skewers! 

The basic idea, is that you collect regular beer cans, give them a rinse and a dry, and then wrap with greased aluminium foil. I used regular sized beer cans and cut out 6" (15 cm) x 10" (25 cm) length pieces of aluminium foil to cover them (about half the width of a normal roll of foil). I found that the best way to get the foil to stick to the can was to grease the can up first, then put on the foil, and then grease the foil again in preparation for the dough. 



Wrap the clean, rinsed and dried beer cans with aluminium foil

5. Use the metal kebab skewers to pierce a hole in the bottom of the beer can (you can also do this with something sharper, like a knife, if that helps, but be careful!). Most beer cans walls are quite thin, so this is not too hard to do. Thread the skewer through the ring pull at the other end of the can in order to secure it, and then lay it down on a deep traybake or roasting pan baking tray. I used a 30 cm (12") x 20 cm (8") x 5 cm (2") one. 


Thread metal kebab skewers through the beer cans and lay on a deep baking tray

6. Preheat the oven to 180C.

7. When the dough has doubled in size, place on a lightly floured surface and roll out with a rolling pin to about 6 mm thick. Then, the best method I found was to go around in a circle with a pizza cutter to create 2 cm wide strips of dough that you can easily wrap round one of the cans. I've seen other methods on the internet that divide the dough into six parts and then roll them out to make very long thin sausages, but I found the dough tended not to stretch that well, and it was difficult to work with very long pieces of dough. With this circle cutting method, you can just life up the dough as you go along and take exactly how much you need for each can. 



Cut the dough in a circle using a pizza cutter

8. Once the strips of dough are wrapped around the can, check all the edges and push any gaps together to avoid the bread coming apart and unravelling during baking. Give the cans a final roll to make sure the dough is even all the way around, then gently roll in the caster sugar, before placing on the prepared baking tray.



Roll the dough around the foil lined beer cans

9. Bake in the oven for 10 - 15 minutes, turning a few times if you can, to help bake evenly. The dough will rise a bit again and they are ready when they've turned golden brown.



Kürtöskalács fresh out of the oven after baking

10. If you really want to recreate that caramelised crispy sugar around the outside at home, you can give the baked kalácses a blast with a chef's blowtorch (you can get some decent ones online now for around or under £20). 

11. Roll in flavouring of your choice! Can be the traditional cinnamon/sugar mix, walnut/sugar, cocoa/sugar, or coconut, sprinkles, whatever you fancy! 

Hope this helps any expat Hungarians living abroad, and even if you're not Hungarian, this bread is really delicious, I thoroughly recommend that you try it!

Happy Easter to everyone!

Magyar verzió

Angliában szinte lehetetlen venni kürtöskalácsot, de a nagynénim irányitott erre a recept felé, ami csodáson működött! Csak egy kicsit módositottam a recepten.

Hozzávalók:

(ez az adag hat mini-kalácsot csinál, szóval hat dobozt kell összegyüjteni)

• 50 dkg liszt
• 10 dkg vaj
• 2,5 dl tej
• 2 egész tojás + 2 tojássárgája
• 4 evőkanál cukor
• 1 csomag szárított élesztő
• kristálycukor
• olaj vagy vaj 

Elkészítés ideje: 20 perc előkészület + 60 perc dagasztás + 15 perc sütés.

Elkészítés menete:

1. A lisztbe szitáld bele az élesztőt és a cukrot. Vegyítsd össze őket, majd az egész tojásokat, illetve a tojássárgákat is keverd hozzá. A tejet picit langyosítsd meg, és azt is add hozzá, végül gyúrd össze az egészet. Amikor már elválik az edény falától, öntsd hozzá a megolvasztott vajat.

2. Nagyjából tíz percig dagaszd.

3. Ezután fedd le egy tiszta konyharuhával, és egy óra alatt keleszd a duplájára. 

4. Ha nincs otthon kürtőskalácsfád, egyszerűen fogj néhány üres sörösdobozt, szintén vond be alufóliával és olajozd meg őket picit. 15 x 25 cm méretű alufólia elég egy dobozra, és konnyebben tapad rá ha a dobozt is előre beolajozod. 


Vond be alufóliával a sörösdobozokat

5. Ha van fém kebab pálcikád, akkor azokkal átszúrhatod a sörösdobozt, és át a másik végén, úgy hogy egy naggyobik tepsire (30 cm x 20 cm x 5 cm) rárakhatod.



Szúrd át a sörösdobozokat fém kebab pálcikákkal

6. A sütőt melegítsd elő 180 fokra

7. Amikor megkelt a tészta, lisztezett deszkán a tésztából lecsípve sodorj nagyjából két centiméter vastag csíkokat, és az alufóliával bevont, beolajozott nyársakra spirál alakban tekercseld fel őket. Én a csíkokat egy belisztezett pizza vágóval vágtam, spirál alakban. Így könnyebben ment a feltekerés a dobozra. 

8. A tészta két végét nyomd össze a mellette lévő sorral, nehogy leváljon a dobozról. A nyújtódeszkát újra lisztezd be, és óvatosan görgesd rajta ide-oda a nyársat, így egyenletes vastagságú lesz a tészta, és nem lesz benne rés.

Ízlésed szerint kristálycukorba, fahéjba, dióba vagy kakaóporba forgasd bele a nyársakat. 9. A kürtőskalácsokat állítsd a tepsire, és be a sütőbe. Körülbelül 10-15 perc alatt elkészülnek, de nem árt, ha néhány percenként megforgatod őket, hogy mindenhol egyenletesen süljenek meg.

10. Hogyha szeretnéd otthon létrehozni azt a findom caramellás kicsit ropogós izet amit általában csak a sutés nyárson lehet szerezni, akkor lehet kicsit megégetni a cukrot a kulselyén egy karamellizáló vagy flambírozó pisztolyall. Már sok helyen lehet venni ilyet (pl. itt), és nem is túl drágák.

Karamellizált cukor a flambírozó pistoly után :)

11. Ezután lehet beherengelni ízlési szerint kellékekbe, mint pl. fahéjas cukor, cacaós cukor, dió vagy kokúsz, stb. ahogy tetszik!

Remélem ez a recept segít azoknak akiknek szintén hiányzik ez a magyar finomság!