Kifli

Kifli (KEE-flee) is a traditional Hungarian cookie made by cutting sheets of soft flour dough into triangular wedges, wrapping those wedges around a filling of sweetened nuts (usually walnuts or pecans) to create a crescent-shaped morsel, which is then baked (permitting the dough to puff) and then lightly sprinkled with confectioner's sugar or cinnamon.

Legend has it that kifli is the progenator of the croissant. The word kifli in Hungarian means "crescent moon," and like the croissant the cookie has a crescent shape. At the end of the 17th century the Ottoman Turks stormed Budapest. The local bakers, who began their work early in the day, were able to raise the alarm and thus helped to defeat the enemy invasion. To symbolize their victory, the bakers employed the emblem of the Turkish empire, the crescent moon, out of puff pastry. The popularity of this commemorative desert is rumored to have become popular in Vienna as well as Budapest, leading the Austrian-born Marie Antoinette, queen of France, to bring a desire for it with her to Paris in the 18th century.

This legend is recorded in Alfred Gottschalk's discussion of the croissant in the first edition (1938) of the Larousse Gastronomique. Gottschalk references the legend about the Turkish attack on Budapest in 1686, in the "history of food" section, although he also discusses a similar legend about the siege of Vienna in 1683.