Chocolate Babka

Spün Bakery

Photos by Liz Caron

It’s hard to classify a babka. Is it a breakfast food? Something to eat on your coffee break? Maybe it’s a dessert. Maybe there’s no need to pigeonhole it at all. Like many things in this world, a babka can be whatever you want. All of the above, or maybe something else completely. Maybe dinner.

Do you even know what a babka is? Lots of people don’t, or maybe they’ve only heard about the Seinfeld episode, when Elaine exclaimed, “you can’t beat a babka!”. And that’s true, it is hard to beat a buttery, yeasted sweet bread, swirled with chocolate, cinnamon or other fillings.

For a long time, I ordered my chocolate babka from Breads Bakery in New York, or would stop in there when I was lucky enough to spend a couple of days in the city. Then I realized there was an excellent babka available right here, from Spün Bakery. Owner/baker Don Gaile sells babka, and his other delicious baked goods, at farmers markets in the summer, indoor makers’ markets in the winter and on-line all the time. He works out of his spacious home kitchen in Freeport, experimenting, tweaking, and creating all kinds of delightful treats.

A few years back, Don ran a little cafe at 317 Maine, the music education center in Yarmouth. I liked to go there for the strong wi-fi and coffee plus his baked goods, including a baby babka. There were scones, muffins and most popular among the kids, a monster cookie that was a chocolate chip cookie baked inside of a brownie cookie.

But the babka is kind of a big deal for Don, a native New Yorker. “Most Mainers don’t have any idea what it is,” he says of the sweet bread which originated in the Jewish communities of Poland and Ukraine. He claims it’s easy to make. “The dough is very forgiving,” he tells me. “It doesn’t require a special technique.” It is time-consuming though, with over a dozen steps and a yeasted dough that requires three risings. The dough then gets rolled out into a large rectangle and filled, with a ganache-like mix of dark chocolate, espresso powder, cocoa powder, butter and confectioners sugar. Here’s where things get interesting. The rolled and filled log is split length-wise down the middle. The two halves are then twisted together, like a two-strand braid. This technique lets the chocolate twist and turn, from top to bottom, throughout the loaf. Before going in the oven, the babka gets a light sugar glaze, mostly for gloss. When it’s baked, the chocolate peeks out, and the layers are easy to pull apart, with chocolate in every bite.

“You can put anything in a babka,” Don says. He regularly fills them with a gooey cinnamon sugar filling as well as the chocolate, and he’s willing to try anything you have in mind. Recently, a raspberry filling for a customer was a hit.

The Spün babka is hefty. “It’s too good just to have a little slice,” Don says. “People ask, is it okay to buy this much?” Of course it is. A loaf lasts a long time, but I find it’s a good idea to cut it in half and immediately freeze one portion. Remembering that you have a half-babka in the freezer is like money in the bank, when you’re craving a little sweet with your coffee. Pro tip: a slice of frozen babka is delicious toasted and spread with a little butter while warm.

“Ex-New Yorkers, like myself, are always thrilled to see my babka,” Don tells me. “If I can convince a new customer to try it, they’re hooked.” One bite, and there’s no question why he has such a loyal following for the sweet bread.