House of Chimney Cakes
173 West Center Steet Promenade
Anaheim, CA 92805
After meeting my parents for an epic lunch nearby, we did not want the good times to end, so I did a quick search of nearby dessert places on Yelp and turned up a bunch of results. One of the most promising was about ten minutes away, so we hopped in our cars and headed to the House of Chimney Cakes.
I had not been to this part of Anaheim for quite some time. The closest I have gotten was the Anaheim Packing House, but this Center Street Promenade area, which is situated across the street from the Anaheim City Hall had a pretty cool, big city vibe going for it. There were some restaurants I have wanted to try here; Pour Vida Latin Flavor, Cervantes Mexican Kitchen, and others, but those would have to wait for another day since we had just eaten a big lunch. This trip was all about itching those sweet cravings we were having.
I had never heard of chimney cakes before this afternoon. Looking at the pictures on Yelp, they kind of looked like the cones were made like churros, with ice cream inside of them, and crazy toppings making them Instagram-worthy. After arriving at this small shop I learned that these are not churros, but a Hungarian sweet bread, traditionally called a kurtoskalacs, which is cylindrical in shape, with a crunchy outer shell and a softer inner core. Their website claims that the chimney cake is like a cross between a donut and a churro. I was intrigued.
Opened since November of last year, the House of Chimney Cakes is owned and operated by a Szandra Szabo, a Hungarian fashion model, who moved to the US to share her love of chimney cakes with the foodies in Southern California. Along with her business partner, she serves as founder, CEO, and head pastry chef at the House of Chimney Cakes.
We arrived here at the awkward hour of 2pm on a recent Tuesday, found parking right away in the adjacent parking structure, and ordered our chimney cakes. The menu here features seven signature creations, which are ready-made options like Oreo Overload, Matcha Madness, Apple Pie, and others. These are perfect for people that don't want to come up with their own creations. You can also build your own chimney cake with the ice cream, toppings, and sauces that you desire. You also have the option of forgoing the chimney cake altogether and getting the soft serve in a cup, like my mom ended up doing. Katie and I wanted the full experience, so let's see how our first chimney cake encounter went over.
Katie went pretty basic here, with her Build Your Own Chimney Cake ($7). She opted for the chocolate soft serve ice cream, a cinnamon-sugar chimney cake cone, and some coconut flakes sprinkled on top. She felt this was good, but not great. She liked that it was not overly sweet, and the soft serve ice cream was of a better quality than most she's had. A pretty basic ice cream treat.
I went a little more crazy, getting their Oreo Overload ($7.95). This signature creation starts with a chimney cake rolled in Oreo cookie crumbs and is filled with vanilla and chocolate soft serve, then more Oreo cookie crumbs are added and then finished off with chocolate sauce and an Oreo cookie. This was just okay, as I was expecting a bit more. Truth be told, I'm not really partial to soft serve ice cream, as I like real deal ice cream better. This was better than average soft serve though. The chimney cone was not what I was expecting either. The outside was crunchy, and I thought the inside was going to be softer, but maybe because the ice cream made it too cold, it was a little harder than I imagined it was going to be. The Oreo experience was lessened even more because they do not have cookies and cream ice cream, which might have helped this out a bit. Thanks for the hand modeling mom.
Much like a lot of these Instagram-worthy foods, the Chimney Cakes were very photogenic, but when it comes to eating them, they do not live up to the hype. These were not awful, but this is more of a place you come once, post your pictures online, and then probably don't return to, unless you are in the area again and want to get some extra likes for your IG account. The chimney cake needed to be sweeter, and with more ice cream flavors available. Very decorative, but not much else going on here.
Out of five falcons, (because the Saker falcon is the official bird of Hungary, the country where chimney cakes originated), five being best to zero being worst, the House of Chimney Cakes gets 2.5 falcons.
For more information about the House of Chimney Cakes, head to their website here: https://www.thehouseofchimneycakes.com/
Very nice article.
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