Bağaça

Bağaça is a kind of donut which has an importance for Antalya Bazaar Cuisine and the Ramadan tradition.

A person who cooks this donut is called a “Bağaçacı” in Turkish. The art of making Bağaça is a traditional profession, with knowledge passed from master to apprentice, from generation to generation.

The ingredients in Bağaça are flour, butter, sugar, tahini, sesame seeds, pine, rosin, chickpea yeast, and cinnamon. Due to the use of chickpea yeast, it is said that Bağaça is not harmful to the stomach.

Traditionally, Antolian people eat Bağaça during Ramadan, but this local delicacy is increasingl becoming popular with tourists. Preparation: Broken soaked chickpeas left to stand for a half day in a bowl. When the yeast is ready; yeast, water and flour get mixed. Then added into enough amount tahini, butter, rosin, cinnamon and sugar to the dough. After the dough rested for a while divided into pieces and weighted. Pieces shaped as circles with hand on a marble countertops then placed in a tray which called as pan with wax paper. Bağaças get raised with butter again and decorated with peanuts, almonds and sesames. Cooked for 10 in the brick oven which preheated with wood fire then left to rest. After cooling Bağaças ready to packed and sold.

Today the most important representatives of Bağaça is Zünbül family. İdris and Mustafa (Father and son also master and apprentice) Zünbül continue to work in Kaleiçi. This business has been working for three generations and known as “18’s Place” among the Antalians because of the first owner's (Grandfather Mustafa ZÜNBÜL) school number.