A local mobile bakery is bringing a delectable taste of Transylvania to Queens residents.
Radu Sirbu, a Middle Village local, owns Twister Cake Bakery, a mobile bakery specializing in twister cake, a popular street food found in Hungary and Romania.
Sirbu said the twister cake is reminiscent of a pretzel with a caramelized sugar exterior and is baked rotisserie-style. “It’s a sweet dough that is like a pretzel. We make long stripes of dough, and then I roll the dough around custom-made wood cylinders. And then they bake with a touch of sugar, and then I bake over the fire.” Sirbu said. Sirbu said the sweet treat is often called a “chimney cake” by Romanian locals due to its shape when removed from the wood cylinders.
Sirbu, who hails from the Transylvania region of Romania, says the famous street food has been enjoyed for over 400 years. Sirbu learned how to bake from his grandmother and turned his lifelong hobby into a business in 2010.
“I started with events like street festivals in New Jersey, Connecticut and Manhattan. Most of these events were for the Romanian and Hungarian communities,” he said. Twister Cake Bakery has also been a fixture at the Queens Night Market since 2016. Currently, Sirbu is at the Queens Night Market until Oct. 26. Sirbu said he posts updates online so loyal customers know their next event locations.
Since the pandemic, Twister Cake Bakery has offered over 20 different products sold nationwide on its website. “We started selling that online to all of the United States. We take orders during the week, and then we ship the following week.” Sirbu said that New York City locals can have their orders delivered directly to them. The online offerings include a variety of sweet and savory offerings, including plum dumplings and savory bread sticks.
“[Savory sticks] go really well with beer and wine. A lot of people have them on the table before lunch or dinner. It’s like when you go to a restaurant here, you have bread and butter on the table,” Sirbu said. A popular fall offering, the plum dumplings are made with Italian plums seasoned with sugar and spices and filled with dough made from potato and semolina flour.
“After we boil them, we roll them in breadcrumbs with cinnamon and sugar. For Christmas and Easter, we make a pound cake, which is very specific to Romaia and called Cozonac,” Sirbu said. Cozonac is a sweet yeast dough often mixed with raisins, baked as a loaf or rolled out with fillings like poppy seed or walnuts.
Sirbu said that he plans to open a storefront within the next six months to a year to serve his customer base further. The storefront would open in Ridgewood or Middle Village, which is home to a large Eastern European community.
