Maybe you grew up eating babka. Or maybe you know it from that 1994 Seinfeld episode, “The Dinner Party,” when Jerry and Elaine frantically search the bakery for a babka to bring to said dinner party. Maybe you’ve heard other people talk about babka but you’ve never had the opportunity to try it. Or, maybe, you have no idea what babka is and this is the first time you’re hearing about it.

 

That’s what this section is for.

​

Babka is a sweet, yeasted-bread with origins in the early 1800s in the Pale of Settlement,  a region of the Russian Empire from the late 18th century through the early 20th century in which Jews were forced to live. Unlike the Polish and Ukrainian cake loaf babka, inspiration for Jewish babka came from leftover dough from making and baking traditional challah for Shabbat, the sabbath. Jewish housewives rolled out the dough, spread it with sweet filling, and rolled and twisted and baked it into a stunning swirl of deliciousness.

 

Jewish immigrants in the United States continued baking this beloved baked good, soon introducing it to Jewish and non-Jewish bakeries alike. The most common flavors are cinnamon and chocolate, but many bakers create their own flavors like birthday cake, Snickers, rose and pistachio, even pizza babka. Zabar’s sells babkas in a myriad of other flavors, like raspberry, apple, and more; Green’s, whose babka you can find in grocery stores, bakes a babka with chocolate and cheese! For those of us with gluten sensitivity or celiac disease, these babkas are a source of drooling desire. 

​

Enter Babka Beach! Our gluten-free babkas are baked in classic flavors like chocolate and cinnamon, plus seasonal flavors, like lemon-poppy or matcha in springtime, peaches-and-cream in summer, apple pie in the fall, and peppermint chocolate in winter. 

From start to finish, it takes over three hours to bake a gluten-free babka, and it takes at least an hour and a half for it to cool down to a package-able temperature. It is quite the labor of love, and I really do love it. 

 

Stay tuned for seasonal flavor updates and for suggested babka and beverage pairings in Da Blawg!