Kürtőskalács. It’s not an everyday word in the American culinary vocabulary, but maybe it should be. And in Herndon, it’s quickly gaining ground.
That’s because at the end of 2022, Julianna Szatmari opened Twisted Sweets & Savory in an off-the-beaten-path strip mall in Herndon. Szatmari and her husband started their first food truck, Spitfire Mediterranean Flame, in 2012. In 2021, they launched their third, Twisted Sweets, which paid homage to her native Hungary with chimney cones filled with soft serve ice cream, a modern take on the traditional kürtőskalács, or chimney cake.
Szatmari says that the soft treats originated no later than the 1700s, when they were a popular street food, twisted around skewers and cooked over an open flame. “Nowadays, it’s much easier,” she says.
She prepares her chimney cakes to order indoors. But that’s not her only innovation. She says she doesn’t recall seeing savory versions of chimney cakes in Hungary, so her sandwiches made from the fluffy, cheese-dotted version of the usually sugar-studded dough are unusual.
The headliner among these is the Hungarian Chimney sandwich, which combines garlicky Hungarian salami with provolone cheese, fresh vegetables, and earthy paprika mayonnaise. Other savory bites include the Pizzaroni Chimney, with crisp beef pepperoni and a side of tomato sauce for dipping, and a Bagel Chimney sprinkled with everything seasoning and covered with cheese.
But sweets are the original version of the chimney cake. The basic model is covered in cinnamon sugar, but it’s also available dusted with cocoa, coconut, or crushed walnuts. The best bang for your calories, however, is the Nutty Chimney, which features a crunchy cinnamon sugar exterior and an interior generously spread with Nutella and pressed with walnuts. There’s no clean way to eat it, but getting a little messy is just part of the lusty enjoyment.
This month, the dessert menu will expand with the reintroduction of the chimney cones that started it all for Szatmari. As the weather warms up, that tiny storefront in Herndon, with its mural of Budapest, is sure to become a destination like no other for creamy soft serve slowly melting in a cone. 626 Grant St., Unit F, Herndon
This story originally ran in our March issue. For more stories like this, subscribe to Northern Virginia Magazine.
