Chimney Cake in the Famous Rumpolt Cookbook

Straight from 1581, here is a recipe from Marx Rumpolt's Ein new Kochbuch. Wikipedia calls the book "the first textbook for professional chefs in training." 1581 was still quite early in spitcake development, so the book doesn't feature the phrase baumkuchen, but it does give a recipe for Spieß kuchen (spit cake) and recommends serving it to nobility as the third (final) course of the first meal of the day.

But what kind of Spieß kuchen is it? Well, it's definitely a chimney cake, but the chimney is formed by wrapping a single rectangular sheet of dough, as opposed to a helical wrapped rope of dough. So it's in the baumstriezel style, not kürtőskalács.

The Yahoo! group "Cooking Rumpolt" is transcribing and translating the entire Rumpolt text, which has been quite useful for me as I browse historical recipes myself. The following translation is provided by the group's director, Ranvaig. Transliteration and translation by Sharon Palmer aka Ranvaig Weaver, © 2013.


TRANSCRIPTION [EARLY NEW HIGH GERMAN] (show/hide)


RANVAIG'S TRANSLATION (show/hide)