HUNGARIAN chimney cakes are among the artisan food offering at Warrington’s new pop-up street market.

The monthly Wire Market will be taking place in the town centre for the first time on Saturday between 10am and 4pm.

Warrington Market’s latest project will see around 50 stalls dotted around the market forecourt, Buttermarket Street, Market Gate and Bridge Street.

The team got the idea after launching an artisan market at Walton Hall and Gardens and seeing the success of the likes of the pop-up Makers’ Market which takes place in Palmyra Square.

So to celebrate the venture we learnt more about a new street food craze you can enjoy at the event.

A chimney cake is a ribbon- like dough that is wound around a wooden cylinder before being dusted with sugar and baked in a rotisserie oven.

It is cooked for just four minutes to create a crispy, golden exterior and fluffy, doughy taste.

Tamás Madarasi-Pap, who grew up in Komló in southern Hungary, got the idea for Cheshire Chimney Cake around two years ago and launched the business in 2018.

The 31-year-old said: “I’ve got two young kids and I always try to introduce them to Hungarian-influenced food.

“Chimney cake – or kürtös kalács as it is in my language – is a traditional dessert and really tasty.

“So one summer day I thought: ‘Could I make it in the garden?’ You usually need a specific oven and pins to make it but just for fun I rolled it around a beer can and cooked the dough on an open fire.

“My neighbour wanted to know what I was making when he started to smell the cake baking.

“He tried it and he said, ‘wow, that is something different’ so that’s how it started. I looked around and couldn’t find anyone who was doing it.

Warrington Guardian:

“When I roll it in cinnamon and it falls off the pin as I bake it, that’s when it creates this amazing smell.”

Also known as a split cake, the dessert originates in Transylvania and goes back 500 years when it used to be much longer and was traditionally a wedding cake.

These days, Tamás gives chimney cakes a contemporary street food touch with numerous flavour options.

They can even be folded to make a decadent ice cream cone.

Tamás, who spends around two-and-a-half hours preparing his dough to ensure its quality and consistency, brings Cheshire Chimney Cake to between 10 and 15 markets each month as well as catering at private events.

He added: “When the sugar caramelises it forms a golden, crispy layer. Then I can roll it in different flavours like cinnamon, chocolate, coconut and roasted walnuts or I can even do things like Oreo, ginger biscuit or chilli chocolate.

“Most people are pleasantly surprised the first time they try it and when it’s just been freshly baked it’s something else.”

Like Macclesfield’s Treacle Market – which refers to the centuries old accident when a horse drawn wagon overturned, spilling its cargo of treacle onto the cobbles – Warrington’s Wire Market is also a nod to the past.

Warrington became a manufacturing town during the Industrial Revolution and was a centre for wire making for two centuries.

And there will be lots to discover at the market because as well as things like street food, one of the key features will be ‘Bridge Street bazaar’ focusing on vintage goods and collectibles.

The Wire Market was originally supposed to launch in April but was postponed due to a severe weather warning.

DAVID MORGAN