Judith Davidoff
Susan Kay
When I was growing up on Long Island in the 1960s and 1970s, there were Jewish bakeries everywhere. A favorite treat was babka — a sweet, loaf-shaped yeast cake with various fillings, including chocolate and cinnamon. I still return from trips to New York City with a babka (or a box of rugelach), but I had no idea babka had become so hip until I happened upon Susan Kay’s stand on opening day of the Monroe Street Farmers’ Market.
“Babka is on trend,” Kay confirms in an interview, sounding very much like someone who spent 22 years in research and development in the food industry before starting her own small-batch artisan bakery in late 2018. Bayk Madison, for now, is focusing solely on babka, which it sells at farmers’ markets. Kay is looking to open a storefront in the near future, where she will offer a full range of bakery products.
Kay grew up on a farm in Kansas, learned baking from her grandmother — a “fabulous baker, a German baker” — and earned a degree in bakery science from Kansas State.
She learned about babka from a former Jewish co-worker whose family had operated a bakery for four generations. When Kay moved to Madison, she didn’t find any freshly baked babka. “There are a few reasons babka is not often made,” says Kay. “It’s fairly laborious. And it’s also fairly expensive to make.” Her loaves sell for $15.
Kay starts with quality ingredients, including butter, flour, sugar, eggs, yeast, salt and milk. The mixed dough is put in the refrigerator to allow the flavors to develop. After about 18 hours, she rolls out the dough, adds the filling, rolls it up like a cinnamon roll, cuts it in half and twists it. After baking, she dribbles simple syrup on top to keep the loaves moist, and also to make them “beautiful and shiny.”
On May 12, she brought four kinds of babka to the Monroe Street market: sticky pecan caramel, chocolate hazelnut, apricot pistachio, and glazed strawberry. The sticky pecan caramel was richly veined with gooey filling. None had the traditional crumb topping I know from my youth, but Kay says she does make some versions that way. I also prefer a flakier outer crust though Kay’s softer shell was moist and tasty.
Kay has big dreams for Bayk Madison, with plans to open similar stores in college towns around the country. “I think there is room in the market for gilt-edged items. Beautiful, pristine and true.”
As for that trend thing, some trace it back to a Seinfeld episode that aired in 1994. Elaine and Jerry go to a bakery to get a chocolate babka for a dinner party. They forget to get a number and, as a result, a couple going to the same party gets the last chocolate babka. Elaine and Jerry are devastated.
“That’s the last babka!” cries Jerry.
Elaine: “You can’t beat a babka!”
