This story begins in the Jewish quarter of Budapest where the Hungarian celebrity chef Rachel Raj has re-popularised the decadent, multi-layered, and celebratory flódni, which she initially sold out of her mother's cake shop before becoming a one-woman industry in her own right. A variation on the Polish Jewish dessert Fluden, a rolled creation akin to a strudel -- according to Salcia Landmann, author of the 1964 book "The Jewish Kitchen" -- flódni consists of layers of walnuts, poppy seeds, and a jam made either from redcurrants or plums, layered in a high-sided tin between a dough made from chicken fat, rolled to a thickness of 2-3mm. Landmann, however, does not mention the fourth and all-important layer of apples (with or without raisins), which cuts through the rich and bitter notes the poppy seeds give off.
Here in Vienna, once the center of an empire whose culinary borders were always rather permeable, as this blog will (I hope) in time show, today the only place you'll find a piece of flódni for sale is Café Eskeles, the restaurant in the lobby of the city’s excellent Jewish museum on Dorotheergasse, run by Vojtech and Eleonora Goldstein, the latter of whom is responsible for the production of their cakes. I spoke to her for an article that was published in Tablet earlier this year and she revealed to me some of the secrets behind her version of this Hungarian Jewish classic. Where others use honey or molasses to bind the poppy seeds or walnuts together, for example, Goldstein uses sugar, putting the flavours of the individual ingredients at the forefront. Her flódni makes for one of the finest cakes you'll find in this city.
