Guide to Slovak Snacks and Wafers

Your visit to Slovakia will not be complete without trying our delicious snacks and sweet wafers (keksy). Although much has changed since the fall of Communism, these remnant of my childhood are luckily still around! The packaging has changed for some, but the original taste is still there. Read on to learn more about the traditional Slovak snacks.

Salty Snacks

Here are my three favorite salty snacks: zemiakové lupienky, chrumky and slané tyčinky (clockwise).

• Zemiakové Lupienky (potato crisps) – these white chips are made out of 35% potato starch, 19% potato flour, vegetable oil and salt. They have a unique taste that is nothing like a potato chip. It’s as if someone took salty snow and fried it. They are fluffy yet crispy, and melt in your mouth. Very good choice to follow a glass of cold Slovak beer.
• Arašidové Chrumky (peanut crunchies) – these little orange “peanuts” are made of cornmeal, fried peanuts 35%, vegetable oil and salt. Although chrumky taste or look nothing like Doritos, they have very much in common. They are finger-licking good and so hard to resist! They consist of a fluffy cornmeal based body which is coated in the fried peanuts. Chrumky are my favorite beer snack.
• Slané Tyčinky (salt sticks) – these mini pretzel sticks are probably my all time favorite Slovak snack. There are several companies making salt sticks, but the best are these skinny ones made by DRU. The inside is soft and sweet and the crust is golden brown and crunchy. These salt sticks are made with wheat flour, vegetable oil, salt, sugar, baker’s yeast, malt flour, dehydrated milk and sodium hydroxide. The last chemical is used to produce the crunchy crust during baking.

Keksíky and Other Sweet Goodies

Here are many of the classic sweet snacks, including my favorites, horalky and kávenky. So what cavity-causing culprits do we have here? From top to bottom:

• Banán v Čokoláde – name of this snack means banana in chocolata. It consists of a yellow jello substance covered in sweet chocolate. Very tasty!
• Sójová Tyčinka – is a sweet dark yellow soy stick. I don’t particularly like these but they are definitely a classic.
• Horalky – are a must try during your visit of Slovakia! These traditional wafer bars are named (my best guess) after the mountain people who inhabited the Tatra mountains forming the border between Slovakia and Poland, goraly or horaly. A female mountain person would be called a horalka, the singular form of horalky. The packaging of these wafers features pictures of plesnivec alpský or edelweis. This beautiful protected flower inhabits the High Tatras and horalky make for a great snack to bring along for a hike in the mountains. The wafers are filled with a peanut filling and are coated in a cocoa sauce. By the way, make sure to get the horalky made by Sedita. These are the original recipe. Sedita is the new name of Pečivárne Sereď, the bakery in Sereď that baked many of these great wafers during communism.
• Dobošky – are also wafers filled with a peanut paste. I suspect these are supposed to be an alternative to Horalky. In my opinion, these are not as good.
• Tatranky – are very similar to horalky, except that they are filled hazelnuts (lieskové oriešky). These wafers are also coated with a cocoa sauce. They are named after Slovakia’s highest mountains, the Tatras. The are also named by Sedita.
• Fidorka – is a circular wafer bar coated in chocolate. Fidorky come in more flavors than any other wafer bar here. Each flavor has a unique color. There is the dark chocolate with hazelnuts in red (pictured), sweet chocolate with hazelnuts in green, sweet chocolate with coconut filling in blue, dark chocolate with dark chocolate filling in brown, and sweet chocolate with milk chocolate filling in yellow.
• Kávenky – are coffee flavored wafer bars made by Sedita. These are probably my favorite keksíky (although I like them all). I am actually eating one right now as I am writing this post. They consist of 4 crispy wafers joined by a sweet coffee flavored filling. They are made with wheat flour, hazelnuts, cocoa and roasted coffee.
• Perník – is a gingerbread bar. It is sliced in half and filled with fruit jam made out of apples, strawberries, raspberries and also a layer of plum preserve (slivkový lekvár). It is then coated in chocolate. Other flavors besides plum exist, but plum is the traditional filling.
• Miňonky – are little wafers filled with cocoa and coated in dark chocolate. Besides the cocoa filling, minoňky also come filled with sweet cream or nuts.