Traditional Chimney Cake Trdelnik Making Workshop Prague

The chimney cake bakery in Prague New Town

The workshop takes place in a small bakery on Lípová street in Prague 2, the New Town district founded in 1348 just south of the Old Town. The space is built around the rotating oven and a long work table, so every participant has a station with a wooden spit, a tray of dough and a bowl of butter and sugar. The instructor welcomes the group, hands out aprons and starts with a short story of the trdelník before the practical part begins. The door opens five minutes before the start of the session.

The bakery is easy to find: it is about five minutes on foot from Charles Square and the Karlovo náměstí metro station, and around fifteen minutes from Wenceslas Square. There is no hotel pickup, and most travellers combine the class with a walk along the Vltava embankment to the Dancing House, which is about ten minutes away.

The trdelník, from village spit cake to the symbol of Prague

The trdelník is a spit cake: a strip of sweet yeast dough wrapped around a wooden roller called a trdlo, rolled in sugar and baked over heat until the outside caramelises and the inside stays soft. The method came to Central Europe from Transylvania and the Hungarian lands and has deep roots in the Slovak town of Skalica, which protected its own version in the 2000s. In Prague the cake arrived more recently, and today its sugar-and-cinnamon smell drifts out of bakery windows all over the Old Town, which is why most visitors ask what a trdelník is before they have even found Old Town Square.

In the workshop you learn the real thing: how the dough is made with wheat flour, milk, eggs and a hint of orange zest, why it needs about 75 minutes to rise, and how the walnut and sugar coating turns into the crisp golden shell. You will never look at a street trdelník the same way again.

Rolling, wrapping and baking your own cake

The practical part lasts about 45 minutes. You take your risen dough, roll it on the floured table into long even strips, and wind the strips around the wooden spit in a tight spiral so that the cake holds together. Then you brush the surface with melted butter, roll the spit in sugar and set it in the rotating oven, where the cakes turn slowly in front of the heat. The instructor checks each one and shows you how to tell when the shell is caramelised but not burnt, usually after ten to fifteen minutes.

When the cake comes off the spit, warm and hollow in the middle, you choose your toppings: classic cinnamon sugar, vanilla sugar, chopped walnuts or coconut. The last twenty minutes of the session are for eating your creation with coffee or tea, taking photos with the certificate and comparing results with the rest of the group. Any cake you cannot finish is wrapped to take away.

Charles Square and the New Town around the bakery

The New Town is the largest of the historic quarters of Prague and the one most visitors walk through without noticing it. Charles Square, a short walk from the bakery, is one of the biggest squares in Europe, laid out as a cattle market in the 14th century and now a tree-filled park with the Gothic New Town Hall on its northern side, the building where the first Defenestration of Prague took place in 1419. South of the square the streets lead to the Baroque monastery and the Emmaus Abbey, and west to the Vltava embankment.

A sweet class fits easily into a day of sightseeing: the morning session leaves the rest of the day for Prague Castle, the midday sessions pair well with lunch in the New Town, and the late-afternoon slot ends with a walk along the river at sunset. Our team is happy to suggest how to get to the workshop from your hotel by metro or tram.