Two years late to the party, but I’ve finally introduced kürtőskalács to my tastebuds at Kurtosh. Kürtőskalács are said to have originated in Transylvania, but are more famous as a street snack in Hungarian-speaking regions. According to Wikipedia,
‘Kürtőskalács is made from sweet, yeast dough (raised dough), of which a strip is spun and then wrapped around a truncated cone-shaped baking spit, and rolled in granulated sugar. It is baked above charcoal cinders while lubricated with melted butter, until its surface gets a golden-brown color. During the baking process the sugar stuck on kürtőskalács becomes caramel and forms shiny, crispy crust on the cake. The surface of cake can then be provided with additional toppings such as ground walnut or cinnamon powder.’
Doesn’t that just sound tasty?
It’s a modern rustic/industrial aesthetic inside the Surry Hills branch. There’s no menu in sight at the store (although you can find one on the Internet), though that’s all right – their kürtőskalács occupies the corner closest to the street window, while their range of slab cakes occupy the rest of the counter.
N and I opted for a hazelnut kürtőskalács. There’s a backlog of orders when we come in, but it is perfection when it arrives. Look at all those nuts clinging to the shiny dough!
The kürtőskalács does not disappoint. It’s warm from the oven, with a soft, spongy centre and crispy golden outer coated in hazelnuts ($8.50 for hazelnut, almond or pistachio topping, $7.50 for cinnamon topping, $9.50 for nutella spread). The toppings were generous even after some of it falls off the kurtosh (and lands everywhere) when you break it apart to eat. Nutty, crispy and spongy, this kürtőskalács was ridiculously moreish.
We went back to try the pistachio kürtőskalács a week later. Unlike the hazelnut kürtőskalács, we got this one as takeaway, which meant it wasn’t warm from the oven but had cooled down to room temperature. Unfortunately, without the addictive warm, spongy centre, that made the kürtőskalács less more-ish and more bread-y. While we could see the pistachio, and taste the crunchiness of the pistachio, we couldn’t actually taste the flavour of the pistachio, which was overwhelmed by the flavour of the crispy outer sugar glaze.
And we got the coconut kürtőskalács for T also for takeaway. The dough on this one seemed too thin, and we were left with a kürtőskalács that was all crispy and no pillowy soft innards. The dessicated coconut around the outside accentuated the dryness of the kürtőskalács . I’d go back for a fresh hazelnut kürtőskalács, but I’d skip the other flavours.
While we waited for the kürtőskalács we had a slab of cake (all $4.50 for 100 g). This is the White Chocolate Roulade with Toffee & Pear, which is a ‘light sponge rolled in white chocolate ganache, filled with toffee mousse and pear cubes’. N and I had some trouble identifying the mousse as being toffee (we initially thought it was white chocolate) as it tastes rather milky, so it could’ve benefited from being a slightly darker toffee flavour, but otherwise, the pear cubes were enjoyable with their good firm bite without being crispy. The white chocolate ganache gave texture, and melted quickly in your mouth with the fluffy sponge (on the drier side).
On our next visit, we try the Blood Orange Roulade, ‘a chocolate sponge rolled with blood orange cream and covered in rich chocolate ganache’. It’s hard to avoid comparing orange and chocolate flavoured foods to Jaffa, but a Jaffa is pretty much what this roulade tastes like. I was a bit skeptical about the blood orange cream tasting like blood orange as the juice of the fruit is a red-orange, but I’m pleased that it tasted like blood orange, as well as the presence of flecks of blood orange flesh throughout the blood orange cream. As with the white chocolate roulade, the sponge was a bit on the dry side, but that went well with the cream, so as to stop the cake from becoming too rich.
And to finish off, an Eggplant and Hummus Bureka ($4.50) because N and I love all things eggplant. This was one tasty pastry! The eggplant came through beautifully, and was cooked just enough so that each tiny cube retained some bite. I could eat a couple of these easily. Yum.
Kurtosh is located at 604-606 Crown St, Surry Hills NSW 2010.