A spit cake is a European-styled

cake Cake is a flour confection usually made from flour, sugar, and other ingredients and is usually baked. In their oldest forms, cakes were modifications of bread, but cakes now cover a wide range of preparations that can be simple or elabor ...

made with layers of

dough Dough is a malleable, sometimes elastic paste made from flour (which itself is made from grains or from leguminous or chestnut crops). Dough is typically made by mixing flour with a small amount of water or other liquid and sometimes includes ...

or batter deposited, one at a time, onto a tapered cylindrical rotating spit. The dough is baked by an open fire or a special oven, rotisserie-style. Generally, spit cakes are associated with celebrations such as weddings and Christmas. The spit can be dipped in a thin dough, or the dough can be poured or rolled on the spit. This cake group may have originated in the classical era, around 400 BC, when similar large cakes were prepared on spits for Dionysiac feasts. In the ''

Deipnosophistae The ''Deipnosophistae'' (, ''Deipnosophistaí'', lit. , where ''sophists'' may be translated more loosely as ) is a work written in Ancient Greek by Athenaeus of Naucratis. It is a long work of Greek literature, literary, Ancient history, h ...

'', the

Ancient Greek Ancient Greek (, ; ) includes the forms of the Greek language used in ancient Greece and the classical antiquity, ancient world from around 1500 BC to 300 BC. It is often roughly divided into the following periods: Mycenaean Greek (), Greek ...

writer

Athenaeus Athenaeus of Naucratis (, or Nαυκράτιος, ''Athēnaios Naukratitēs'' or ''Naukratios''; ) was an ancient Greek rhetorician and Grammarian (Greco-Roman), grammarian, flourishing about the end of the 2nd and beginning of the 3rd century ...

(c. 170 – c. 230) describes some of the bread, cakes, and pastries available in classical times. Among the breads mentioned are griddle cakes, honey-and-oil bread, mushroom-shaped loaves covered in poppy seeds, and the military specialty of rolls baked on a spit.

Preparation techniques

The cooking process is similar for all the spit cakes: they all consist of a dough applied on a spit which is slowly rotated over an open fire or other heat source. One way of doing this is when the spit is dipped several times in a bowl with liquid dough or the thin dough is poured on a spit. Depending on the dough's consistency and the spit's speed, it will form a layer on the spit, and when very runny, it will drop, thus producing small spikes, giving the cake a

coral Corals are colonial marine invertebrates within the subphylum Anthozoa of the phylum Cnidaria. They typically form compact Colony (biology), colonies of many identical individual polyp (zoology), polyps. Coral species include the important Coral ...

-like appearance. The resulting cake consists of many layers of cooked dough, and when cut is shown to consist of rings – hence the German name for this type of cake,

Baumkuchen Baumkuchen () is a kind of spit cake from German cuisine. It is also a popular dessert in Japan. The characteristic rings that appear in its slices resemble tree rings, and give the cake its German name, ''Baumkuchen'', which literally translat ...

, or "tree cake." Alternatively, the dough is wrapped around the spit as spiral threads. In some varieties of the cake, while they maintain the shape of the spit cake, the rings are actually baked separately and attached to each other with icing. Some spit cakes have a smooth surface. Others, like ''spettekaka'' and ''šakotis'', have an irregular shape.

Varieties

Variations on the basic process are found in many countries and cultures; what they have in common is that the laborious and time-consuming process produces a cake suitable for special occasions, such as weddings or Christmas feasts. Some varieties are made with a dough with flowing paste while others use a more solid dough. In Austria, spit cakes are known as Prügelkrapfen; in Germany there are two varieties called

and Baumstriezel; in Hungary

kürtőskalács (; sometimes improperly rendered as ''kurtosh kolach''; ; ) is a spit cake specific to Hungarians from Transylvania, more specifically the Székelys. Originally popular in the Székely Land, it became popular in both Hungary and Romania. The fi ...

; in Romania ''Kürtőskalács'' (also known as ''Colac/Cozonac secuiesc'', or ''Baumstriezel''); in the Czech Republic and Slovakia

trdelník Trdelník (; or rarely trdlo or trozkol) is a kind of spit cake and variant of Kürtőskalács. It is made from dough that is wrapped around a stick, then baked and topped with sugar and walnut mix. Origin Trdelník has its origins in the no ...

; in Sweden spettekaka; in Lithuania

šakotis Šakotis ("tree cake") ( , sękacz.

and Baumstriezel are German varieties of spit cake. Baumkuchen is prepared in the shape of a tree and is served sliced in rings that resemble

tree ring Dendrochronology (or tree-ring dating) is the scientific method of dating tree rings (also called growth rings) to the exact year they were formed in a tree. As well as dating them, this can give data for dendroclimatology, the study of climate ...

s, and thus gave the

its

German German(s) may refer to: * Germany, the country of the Germans and German things **Germania (Roman era) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizenship in Germany, see also Ge ...

name, ''Baumkuchen'', which translates as "tree cake". Baumstriezel is made of a batter made with yeast, and has a caramel crust while the Baumkuchen is not baked with yeast but with

baking powder Baking powder is a dry chemical leavening agent, a mixture of a carbonate or bicarbonate and a weak acid. The base and acid are prevented from reacting prematurely by the inclusion of a buffer such as cornstarch. Baking powder is used to increas ...

, and has no crust of caramelized sugar. Baumkuchen has as its ingredients eggs, marzipan, sugar, butter and flour. Baumkuchen is served plain or with white sugar icing or covered with chocolate. This type of cake is known in Austria as Prügelkrapfen and in Luxembourg called Baamkuch, traditionally served on special occasions, such as weddings. The Austrian Prügelkrapfen or Prügeltorte is a variety of spit cake with a liquid base dough poured on the spit.Stanley Cauvain and Linda Young (2001). ''Baking problems solved''. Woodhead Pub Ltd, p. 261. .

Kürtőskalács (; sometimes improperly rendered as ''kurtosh kolach''; ; ) is a spit cake specific to Hungarians from Transylvania, more specifically the Székelys. Originally popular in the Székely Land, it became popular in both Hungary and Romania. The fi ...

is made of a

made of wheat flour, egg, yeast, often extra egg yolks, milk, and butter, iced with sugar. The sugar will be caramelised, creating a hard, crisp brown layer on the cake's surface. Its Slovak version is called

or ''Skalický trdelník '', and it was registered in December 2007 as PGI (

protected geographical indication Three European Union schemes of geographical indications and Traditional food, traditional specialties, known as protected designation of origin (PDO), protected geographical indication (PGI), and traditional speciality guaranteed (TSG), promote ...

) in the European Union. The registration application with the detailed description of the product was published in April 2007 in the Official Journal of the European Union. It is made from rolled dough that is wrapped around a stick, then grilled and topped with sugar and walnut mix. Šakotis is the Lithuanian traditional spit cake, It is a cake made with a loose dough of butter, eggs, flour, sugar, and cream, poured on the spit, forming "

stalactite A stalactite (, ; , ) is a mineral formation that hangs from the ceiling of caves, hot springs, or man-made structures such as bridges and mines. Any material that is soluble and that can be deposited as a colloid, or is in suspension (chemistry ...

s" when dropping from the spit. In Lithuanian means "peaked" or "branchy" or "branched tree" due to its conical shape resembling a pine tree, and with the drips looking like the tree branches. It is baked in a time- and labor-intensive process, by pouring layers of dough onto a rotating spit in a special open oven or over an open fire. Spettekaka is a traditional dessert of a Southern part of Sweden, mostly of Scania region and is an important part of culinary heritage. Spettekaka is different in that the dough is made of potato flour. The ingredients are potato starch flour, sugar and eggs. The rest of the process is similar, the thin dough forming layers when it is slowly poured onto a rotating cone shaped spit. The final layer of pink or white icing can be applied at the end of baking. The Spettekaka is a brittle and dry variety of this dessert, somewhat similar in consistency to

meringue Meringue ( , ) is a type of dessert or candy, of French cuisine, French origin, traditionally made from Whisk, whipped egg whites and sugar, and occasionally an acid, acidic ingredient such as lemon, vinegar, or potassium bitartrate, cream of t ...

; it is light, airy and crisp. Those cakes range in size anywhere from a few inches to several feet in height and over a foot in diameter. Cutting Spettekaka with a regular knife is nearly impossible due to crumbling, therefore a special saw-like knife is used. During celebrations there is a tradition to cut out small rectangle windows from the sides of the cake, keeping the whole shape intact as long as possible. File:Baumkuchen,dresden,Deutschland.JPG,

is layered File:Kurtoskalacs szentivanlaborfalva1.jpg, The

charcoal Charcoal is a lightweight black carbon residue produced by strongly heating wood (or other animal and plant materials) in minimal oxygen to remove all water and volatile constituents. In the traditional version of this pyrolysis process, ca ...

imparts a distinct flavour to the cake File:Baumstrietzel-weihnachtsmarkt-rs.jpg, Baumstrietzel cooked at Weihnachtsmarkt in electric oven File:Baumstriezel.JPG, Baumstriezel File:Kürtőskalács2011.jpg ,

File:Šakotis 3799.jpg, Šakotis File:SkalickyTrdelnik.JPG, Trdelník slices File:Skånsk Spettkaka.jpg, Spettekaka

References

External links

{{Spit cake Spit cakes Greek cakes

Preparation techniques

Varieties

See also

References

Further reading

External links