What you didn’t know about most famous Hungarian desserts

We eat them, we enjoy them but we don’t know who we can thank them for. Listed below are some of our most famous desserts and the stories behind them.

Dobos Cake

József Dobos was already a well-known confectioner when, in 1884, he came up with a brand new idea and created the dessert named after him. He wanted something that could be consumed after a longer period of time despite the undeveloped refrigerating techniques of his era. It started out with a mistake when his man accidentally added sugar to the butter instead of salt. Master Dobos liked how it tasted and created the butter cream, which is now very popular around the world. The cake quickly became famous, but the recipe remained secret until 1906 when he gave out the original recipe to the public. He retired the same year, but was always proud to have created such a cake.

Gundel Pancake

Not many people know that the famous pancake actually wasn’t created by the historic Gundel family. The recipe belongs to the wife of Sándor Márai, Lola. She introduced Károly Gundel to the recipe at a banquet held in the restaurant after one of the premiers of his husband. Károly Gundel liked it so much that he put it on his menu under the name Márai pancake. It became Gundel pancake during the communist regime when the Márai family had to emigrate and the use of his name was prohibited.

Rigó Jancsi Cake

János Rigó was born in 1858 in Pákozd with a great talent of playing the violin, which brought him to Pest and later travelled all around the world. In 1896 he performed in Restaurant Payard when he met Clara Ward and the fell in love. They both got divorced so that they could remarry. One time he wanted to impress her woman with a creamy chocolate cake. While watching the couple, the confectioner who created the cake named it after him with a great sense for marketing. His hopes were right; the cake became popular and spread quickly.