Ironically I'm french but I was aware of the tredelnik and the baumkuchen but not this one

My favorite cake to eat in Japan is the baumkuchen - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baumkuchen

Never tried it, but apparently it's not that good. Like, super dry, and very basic taste.

I dunno how they make it in other countries, but I can confirm that a well-made German Baumkuchen, coated with chocolate to keep the dough from drying out, is simply delicious. It even got so popular in Japan that they have it in most supermarkets (baumukuhen / バウムクーヘン).

The story of how that even happened is all kinds of amazing in and of itself.

Opposite experience. The versions I've tasted were not dry (unless left out for too long), had a sort of melt-in-your-mouth texture, was sweet, had a specific taste that's hard to name (eggnog?).

Yeah, it looks like a fun gimmick but it's basically a butter biscuit with a bit of rum and liqueur, which does most of the heavy lifting there.

Can confirm; looks great but I was disappointed while eating it.

The magic taste happens when the batter is exposed to air and heat through the gradual builds of layers?

The magic taste happens with the 2 litres of rum !

But there's not really a magic taste, it's just a fun tradition.

I never thought I'd see the traditional cake from the region I grew up in on the HN frontpage :)

It's not a french cake, it's been brought to france

This looks like Baumkuchen, must be relative of sorts

Napoleon's soldier saw the spit cakes from eastern europe and brought it back to France apparently.

You find variations all over Europe