Šakotis: Lithuanian spit cake roasted over a fire that looks like a Christmas tree.

Most cakes are created in about the same way.
In short, you mix a batter in the variety you prefer, pour it into a pan, and bake it in an oven.
Spit cakes, in a dramatic contrast, are cooked by flinging batter onto a rotating dowel over an open flame, with several variations popular across Europe, including Hungary, Slovakia, and Czech Republic, where tend to be tubular, while German baumkuchen looks like donuts stacked one on top of the other.

The closest resemblance to spit cakes can be traced back to 400 B.C.
Not by chance, Ancient Greeks used to make bread, called Obeliai, derived from “obeloi”, a spit, by winding dough on a spit and baking it over an open fire. It was about 2 meters long and men in the processions carried the spit on their shoulders to the sanctuary of Dionysus.
Romans adopted spit baking and with the expansion of Roman empire the tradition spread across Europe.
The first known record about spit cakes is 15th century Heidelberg manuscript, and the description mentions a strip of raised dough that has to be wound in spiral around a baking spit, and brushed with egg before baking.
That type of cakes were baked by Szekler-Hungarians as well as Czech-Moravians.
It was the 16th century when some other variations emerged. Saxons from Transylvania, for example, who immigrated to Germany, started making Baumstriezel by placing a sheet of stretched dough on the surface of the spit and tying it together with a string, and German bakers also introduced the liquid batter, that was poured onto a rotating spit. The recipe with slight variations of batter was widely adopted and now is used in Austria, Poland, Lithuania, France, Sweden and some other countries in Europe.

One of the most dramatic spit cakes, though, is “Šakotis”, its Lithuanian version, that means “branched” in Lithuanian.
In the Middle ages when the recipe was brought from Germany, it was made only in monasteries and called by a similar name of Baumstriezel, “Bankuchenas”, which is still used in certain parts of Lithuania even these days.
However, the batter is made rich with eggs and, unlike in the recipes of other countries, cream or sour cream is used for the richer consistency of the pastry.
In the final stages of the cooking process, bakers increase the speed at which the spit rotates, which causes spikes to form as batter is flung towards the fire, and the result is a cake that resembles a Christmas tree.
Making it can easily take even five hours.
Bakers ladle batter along the spit in regular stages, and the skill comes from knowing just how much batter to add (and just how long to wait) so all the batter stays on the cake.
By piling more batter in the middle, and then cutting the final product in two, bakers can achieve its tree-like appearance.
For important events like weddings, they may decorate enormous sakotis, which stand taller than some guests, with sugary flowers, nuts, and drizzles of chocolate, but you can buy spit cake also in single-serving sizes.
However, given the labor-intensive baking process, they’re almost always made large and then cut up.

Images from web – Google Research