I would add sękacz to the list. As the wikipedia article notes, there is evidence that there were spit cakes in ancient Greece.
femtozer 21 hours ago [-]
I never thought I'd see the traditional cake from the region I grew up in on the HN frontpage :)
TheRoque 20 hours ago [-]
Never tried it, but apparently it's not that good. Like, super dry, and very basic taste.
jaynetics 17 hours ago [-]
I dunno how they make it in other countries, but I can confirm that a well-made German Baumkuchen, coated with chocolate to keep the dough from drying out, is simply delicious. It even got so popular in Japan that they have it in most supermarkets (baumukuhen / バウムクーヘン).
TheRealPomax 16 hours ago [-]
The story of how that even happened is all kinds of amazing in and of itself.
dmos62 16 hours ago [-]
Opposite experience. The versions I've tasted were not dry (unless left out for too long), had a sort of melt-in-your-mouth texture, was sweet, had a specific taste that's hard to name (eggnog?).
kergonath 15 hours ago [-]
They are not dry if they are made properly and eaten straight away. The stuff we can get in the stores is of variable quality (or at least variable storage conditions).
That said, it’s popular cuisine, from regions that were historically not that wealthy. It’s a bit rustic, but there is some beauty in its simplicity.
xandrius 20 hours ago [-]
Yeah, it looks like a fun gimmick but it's basically a butter biscuit with a bit of rum and liqueur, which does most of the heavy lifting there.
Oarch 18 hours ago [-]
Can confirm; looks great but I was disappointed while eating it.
poulpy123 16 hours ago [-]
Ironically I'm french but I was aware of the tredelnik and the baumkuchen but not this one
cantalopes 14 hours ago [-]
This cake is really funny to me because almost every central european country has a variety of this cake, having unclear roots going back somewhere to middle age germany and "around", and people in the comments always get super nationalistic and angry about this being cake from country X and not from a country of X
arnejenssen 20 hours ago [-]
The magic taste happens when the batter is exposed to air and heat through the gradual builds of layers?
4gotunameagain 19 hours ago [-]
The magic taste happens with the 2 litres of rum !
But there's not really a magic taste, it's just a fun tradition.
Giorgi 21 hours ago [-]
This looks like Baumkuchen, must be relative of sorts
TheRoque 20 hours ago [-]
Napoleon's soldier saw the spit cakes from eastern europe and brought it back to France apparently.
ginko 20 hours ago [-]
You find variations all over Europe
knodi123 14 hours ago [-]
baumkuchen with a lot more centrifugal force!
barryobarry 20 hours ago [-]
It's not a french cake, it's been brought to france
kergonath 15 hours ago [-]
It’s not a very good point. Everything was from somewhere else at some point. It resonated in some places and got integrated into local traditions, it’s all there is to it. Yes, there are some things that are spread throughout Europe. They can still be part of local customs.
lo_zamoyski 12 hours ago [-]
You're right that people borrow all the time. Cultural exchange is normal. What I charitably suspect the parent was alluding to was the French (though, of course, not exclusively French) tendency to saddle so much of what they've received with French roots. If it weren't for the revolution, we might learn that Jesus himself was a Frenchman!
> Several national variants of spit cakes: Spettekaka, Trdelník, Prügelkrapfen, Baumstriezel, Kürtőskalács, Šakotis, Baumkuchen, Kürtősfánk
> https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/2a/Spetteka...
That said, it’s popular cuisine, from regions that were historically not that wealthy. It’s a bit rustic, but there is some beauty in its simplicity.
But there's not really a magic taste, it's just a fun tradition.