By New York Post (U.S.) | Created at 2024-10-30 17:39:05 | Updated at 2024-10-31 07:24:37
14 hours ago
You don’t have to visit Dracula’s castle to get a taste of Transylvania this Halloween.
A 200-year-old family recipe for a popular pastry from the spooky region of Romania is being served up by a native of the area in Queens this season — and by all accounts its definitely something to sink your fangs into.
“This is real Transylvanian stuff,” said Radu Sirbu, 51, who sells the twisted-looking cakes, called Kürtöskalács, from his food truck this holiday.
“Of course, I’m going to be dressed as Dracula.”
Sirbu, an immigrant from the legendary Romanian province, has been making the cakes for more than a decade in his mobile Twister Cakes Bakery – and adapting them for Halloween in America by dusting them with bat and pumpkin sprinkles.
They have been so to-die-for that sometimes crowds have waited up to three hours.
The cakes – also known as chimney cakes for their hollow shape – are made fresh within about eight minutes, he said, with sweet pretzel-like dough rolled in sugar and baked rotisserie-style in his custom-made propane oven.
The street food – which are especially popular at European Christmas markets and have been enjoyed for nearly 400 years – are sometimes given a unique twist from Sirbu, who sometimes fills them with ice cream or tops them with flavors like pumpkin spice, coconut or even bacon.
“A lot of people first ask ‘what is this?’” Sirbu said, noting that much of his regular customer base stumbles upon his stand at food festivals from April to November, such as the Queens Night Market and various Eastern European cultural festivals.
“Social media is also a big role [in the business],” he said. “[Customers] then come back, they bring their friends. That’s how I grow.”
The Middle Village resident of more than two decades first began baking twister cakes with his grandmother in Romania when he was about 12 years old, he told The Post.
After emigrating to the U.S., he began baking twister cakes as a hobby in 2010 – which turned into a full-fledged bakery given his success as one of the first vendors at the Queens Night Market in 2016.
He’s now a regular at the seasonal night market, and sends out an email newsletter to let loyal customers know where he’ll be next.
“We’ve expanded a lot,” he said. “Hungarians and Romanians became a minority [customer base].”
Demand for the authentic cakes reached an all-time high in 2022 when Sirbu began offering nationwide shipping — and an expanded menu of sweet and savory offerings. Many of his orders now come from pockets in New York, Arizona and California, he said.
Despite Transylvania’s association in the U.S. with vampires and Halloween, Christmastime is one of Sirbu’s busiest times of year, with about 200 monthly orders of other Eastern European treats ranging from savory bread sticks to cheese pretzels to babka to plum dumplings.
“They’re all simple products, but people love it,” the owner said.
Sirbu plans to open a brick-and-mortar store somewhere in Queens over the next year, which will feature his famous twister cake as well as nearly two dozen other Transylvanian delicacies he ships online.
In the meantime, the Queens resident reports he’s fully embracing the Halloweentime, and is looking forward to finding more events around New York to share his authentic bites.
“I have no competition, nobody [else] makes it here,” Sirbu said. “It’s a tough business, but I love doing it.”
