• Kürtős Kalács is a festive dessert specific to southeastern Transylvania.
• Both the Saxons from Țara Bârsei and the Szeklers from Covasna county claim the origin of this tasty dish.
Kürtős Kalács, known to everyone as the Szekler baker, became famous throughout Romania only after the fall of the communist regime, when Szekler bakers, most of them from Covasna county, developed their own businesses and spread the product nationally (hence the name "Szekler cake" ).
Very popular at fairs, festivals and holidays, Kürtős Kalács is first attested in 1450 in a Heidelberg manuscript, which describes it as a dessert made from strips of sweet leavened dough, spirally wound around a cylinder , smeared with egg yolk and baked in the oven. But the first written recipe in history for this glazed cozonac can be found in 1784, in the Szekler cookbook of Mrs. Grof Mikes Mária from Bit (Covasna county).
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If today the savory dessert is famous for its caramelized sugar glaze with various other toppings, the recipe presented by Mikes Mária contained no sugar at all. The method of sweetening the cylindrical cozonac by caramelizing a layer of crystal sugar on its surface was able to spread in Szekler and Saxon villages only at the end of the 19th century, when sugar factories began to operate.
By the end of the 18th century, cozonac had spread throughout the Hungarian-speaking area. In the 19th and 20th century, the recipe for Szekler cozonac entered most Hungarian recipe books. It came to be known from Lithuania, to the southeast of the Szeklerland, throughout Transylvania and in Eastern Hungary. Currently, the popularity of Szekler cozonac is conquering the whole world, enjoying appreciation both in Bucharest and Budapest, as well as overseas, in Montreal - Quebec, Canada, where on Plateau Mont-Royal we even find a store, Ol' Sweet, specialized in the production and marketing of the tasty Transylvanian dessert.
Ingredients and preparation
The name of this pastry originates from the Hungarian word "kürtő" and is translated by "chimney / chimney". Moreover, the support on which this cozonac is baked is a cylinder of about 25-30 cm. When the product is removed from the cylindrical support, a tube-shaped cake results. The second part of the name "kalacs" means "braided bun".
Even though over the centuries the shape and preparation technology have undergone slight variations, for the most part Kürtős Kalács has retained its authenticity. In terms of ingredients, the dough is made from wheat flour, milk, whole eggs and yolks, lard or butter, yeast, sugar, a pinch of salt. In addition to these, the producers also add, for more flavor, lemon peel and vanilla. The kneaded dough is left to rise for an hour and a half, after which it is shaped and baked.
For baking, the strip dough, having a thickness of about 1 cm, is stretched in a spiral on the cylindrical wooden support, greased with butter or lard, leaving a small distance between the pieces of dough, which will disappear during baking. Then the support is placed on top of the brazier. The wooden support will be rotated permanently, manually or with the help of electrical mechanisms, to allow the dough to brown evenly. During baking, the dough is buttered and sprinkled with sugar. When the sugar has caramelized, the Szekler cake is ready. Nuts, cinnamon, coconut are sprinkled on the sugar, still warm, thus being personalized for everyone's taste.
Similar cakes in the cuisines of other countries
Having become a Szekler symbol, at the request of several associations in Covasna, Kürtős Kalács was included by the Hungarian Ministry of Agriculture on the list of products Hungaricum. A special commission, established in Covasna for the promotion of kürtős, also initiated the registration of the Szekler cake as a Special Traditional Product, an action by which this cake benefits from protection in the European Union.
In European dessert recipes we will find products similar to the Szekler cake. This is how they prepare in the Czech Republic and Slovakia trdelnik, product with a protected name in the EU, in Austria Prugelkrapfen, and in Germany Baumkuchen, named by the Saxons "Baumstriezel"( "bun braided around a tree trunk" ). Spain, more specifically the region of Catalonia, has its version of the so-called cozonac Ximeneta. So does Lithuania – Branch out and Poland – Sękacz. Swedish shortbread, Spettekaka, is also declared a protected designation of origin product in the EU.
Article written by Gabriela Dan, Editor of Arta Albă.
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