City of joy and excitement, Izmir is undoubtedly one of the most entertaining and full of life cities in Turkey. Located in the Aegean region, Izmir is strong in tourism, industry, production, and agriculture, also being the 3rd most populous city of Turkey. This modern and developed city provides us with a profound history of countless civilizations. The city is filled with museums and ruins of older generations that once roamed these lands. Providing a rich pallet of delicious meals and dishes of Turkish cuisine combined with the fresh tastes of the Mediterranean Sea, Izmir comes with an exploding dessert: Bomba.
Recalled as the “Izmir Bombası” (meaning Bomb of İzmir) by the Turkish people, bomba is essentially a Nutella stuffed cookie with soft textured dough. Without precise roots, Izmir bomba dessert is seen as a continuation form of Ottoman’s “Murabbalı Mecidiye,” a cookie filled with apricot marmalade. Izmir bomba is a “bomb” of chocolate, as a bite taken from this cookie will result in a great flow of delicious chocolate into your mouth. This newly-growing dessert reached its popularity with the usage of social media and influencers. The richness of chocolate it possesses created amazing frames that resulted in mouth-watering pictures blasted through social media. Izmir Bomba became more known after these photos managed to gain great attention, and many bakeries across Turkey started to produce this dessert. According to Google Trends, the recipe of Izmir Bomba was the 6th on the list of Turkey’s most searched food recipes in 2020, as it was pretty easy to make. This tasty dessert even managed to be a topic for national news a couple of times over the discussion of “who had done it first.” As of our day, this delicious chocolate bomb is a signature Izmir dessert loved by almost everyone in Turkey.
With different variations, the classical type of bomba dessert is made with white dough shaped of a ball, then filled with high amounts of liquated chocolate. In addition, there are white chocolate filled ones or framboise flavored versions of Izmir Bomba dessert. The original version of this dessert has special Turkish butter and eggs in it. A version where vegetable oil and no eggs are used is common now since it has a thinner outer layer. Many people prefer the thinner version since there is only a little obstacle between the flow of rich chocolate when some prefer the thicker and crusty version as it provides another level of taste. The Izmir Bomba is likely to keep its popularity.