Chocolate Babka – Davis Bakery (2024)

FAQs

Why do Jews eat babka? ›

Like many Jewish-American specialties, babka originated in Eastern Europe – Poland and Ukraine in particular – in the early 1800s. As a way to use extra challah dough, Jews there would roll up the dough with cinnamon or fruit jam and bake it alongside the challah.

Trader Joe's describes this as "a sweet rich pastry layered with chocolate." An 18-ounce babka costs $4.99. In our Trader Joe's, I've seen this come and go.

Chocolate Babka is a sweet, swirly, cake loaf rooted in Eastern European Jewish traditions. Trader Joe's Chocolate Babka is made for them by a small, kosher bakery in Brooklyn that literally grew out of a grandmother's kitchen.

Price: Green's babka reaches $8.95 at Zabar's and over $10 at Whole Foods (sold under those stores' labels), so look for their loaves labeled as Green's, not a store brand; those are only $5.99 for 20 ounces.

Trader Joe's Chocolate Brooklyn Babka is now O/U pareve certified. This product is Pas Yisroel and Yoshon.

Slice the babka and serve it at room temperature; or rewarm individual slices briefly in a toaster, if desired.

Panera Bread - Returning Favorite Chocolate Pecan Babka - A rich, sweet egg bread that is marbled with semi-sweet flavored chocolate filling and toasted pecans. | Facebook.

STORING YOUR BABKAS

Babka will always be best the same day, but they'll hold well at room temperature up to three days after baking. Store the cooled babkas in a sealed container or wrapped in plastic.

The 500 plus Trader Joe's in the USA are owned by ALDI Nord, a German family grocery chain formed by Theo Albrecht. Theo's brother Karl Albrecht founded ALDI Sud, which operates 1,000 ALDI stores in the eastern USA.

What is Trader Joe's sister company? ›

A tale of two Aldis

For those who are stunned to learn Trader Joe's isn't just an Aldi subsidiary but that there are two Aldis, let's take a step back. CNBC explains Aldi was originally founded as a suburban German corner store which brothers Karl and Theo Albrecht inherited after World War II.

It is with great pleasure that we can say there's no wrong time to eat babka! This chocolate loaf is especially decadent, making it particularly well-suited for dessert, but if you're feeling fancy in the A.M. hours, it goes great with a cup of coffee.

In Poland, Albania, Macedonia and Bulgaria, Babke Cake is usually baked to be eaten on Easter Sunday, although it's also enjoyed during other celebrations too. Old forms of Babka are said to have been similar to an Italian pannetone, and were much larger and higher than their modern equivalent.

Trader Joe's Cinnamon Brooklyn Babka is a zesty, swirly, brioche-meets-cake loaf rooted in Eastern European Jewish traditions.

To my friend who posted on February 19: Your dough is dry because kneading for 16-20 minutes is WAY too long. Babka is delicate, not at all like regular bread dough and should not be kneaded but for maybe 30 seconds to combine the softened butter as the last step (far less than even this recipe recommends).

Babka originated in the Jewish communities of Eastern Europe in the early 19^th century. Part bread, part cake, the name is thought to derive from a popular Easter cake made in Poland called “baba” which means “grandmother” in Polish.

In part, the bagel became largely associated with Jewish culture because boiling bread before toasting it served as a loophole to get around the laws that banned Jews in Poland from baking bread.

borrowed from Yiddish & Polish; Yiddish babke (in sense a), borrowed from Polish babka (in sense b), literally, "old woman, grandmother," diminutive of baba "grandmother, midwife, old woman"

Babka is another braided white bread that is usually served with a cinnamon filling and syrup. But unlike challah, which includes eggs and oil, babka dough contains eggs, butter and milk, making it more airy, shiny and smooth.