Born at Budapest's legendary Gundel restaurant in the early 20th century, the dessert was actually first made for the writer Sandor Marai, whose wife asked the kitchen to recreate a family recipe. Restaurateur Karoly Gundel loved it so much he kept it on the menu, and after the Marai family emigrated it took the Gundel name and its showpiece tableside flambe.
A paper-thin crepe gives way to a chewy, fragrant walnut filling laced with rum and orange, all under a rich, bittersweet chocolate sauce. The flambe adds a faint warm caramel edge and a little theatre.
Toasting the walnuts in syrup deepens their flavour and keeps the filling moist, while the egg-yolk-enriched chocolate sauce is essentially a warm custard that stays glossy; the flambe burns off raw alcohol and leaves toasted aromatics.
Variations
Hazelnuts in place of some walnuts, sauce spiked with extra cocoa or coffee, served without flambe in homes, topped with whipped cream
On the Palate
Where Gundel Palacsinta sits in the Hungarian flavor cloud
Ingredients
Serves 4
How it's made
8 steps · 30 min
- 110 min
Whisk a thin crepe batter of flour, eggs, milk, and a pinch of salt and let it rest.
- 212 min
Fry thin, lacy crepes in a buttered pan and stack them.
Watch outSwirl the batter thin so the crepe sets lacy and pale-gold in seconds — if it browns hard or turns rubbery, the pan's too hot or the batter's too thick.
- 38 min
Toast ground walnuts in sugar syrup with raisins, orange zest, and a splash of rum to make the filling.
Watch outToast the ground walnuts in the syrup just until they smell nutty and the mix thickens — take it off before it darkens or the filling turns dry and scorched.
- 45 min
Spread filling on each crepe and fold into triangles or roll them up.
- 58 min
Make the chocolate sauce by whisking egg yolks, cocoa, sugar, and cream over gentle heat until thick and glossy.
Watch outWhisk the yolk-cocoa sauce over gentle heat only until it coats the spoon and turns glossy — let it boil and the yolks scramble into grainy specks.
- 63 min
Arrange the filled crepes on plates and coat generously with the warm chocolate sauce.
- 72 min
Warm a little rum, pour it over, and flambe at the table until the flames die down.
Watch outWarm the rum just to body temperature before lighting — barely-warm spirit catches a clean blue flame, but boiling it first burns off the fumes and it won't flambe.
- 81 min
Serve immediately while the sauce is glossy and the crepes warm.
