Hannah Wolfman-Arent in her home bakery. (photo: Velvel Breads)

Hannah Wolfman-Arent knows a thing or two about baking. Born in DC, raised in Takoma Park and now living in Petworth, Hannah has wanted to be a baker since she was little. Her ultimate goal was in front of her, as she first worked for a community service organization after college before coming back to DC in 2019 and being encouraged by friends and colleagues to go after her dream.

She wanted to learn more about baking and cooking, and took a job at a wood-fired pizza restaurant, and then went on to be a baker at Sonny’s Pizza. During COVID quarantine she learned more about baking, and worked at Doubles in Park View (used to be Colony Club), baking pastries like scones, cookies, breads, gluten-free breakfast blondies and turnover.

Finally, over the summer of 2021, she decided to test the idea of opening a bakery from her Petworth rowhome, and started selling bagels and challah at home. In November, after getting a new oven and more supplies because orders were through the roof, she decided to make it real and opened Velvel Breads. The name of the bakery is Yiddish for “wolf,” a self-reference to both her Jewish heritage and a play on words with her last name.

A year later and Hannah is delivering baked goodness to special pickup spots around Mount Pleasant, Petworth and Takoma Park. Velvel’s menu is centered around breads, including a crusty sourdough, a seeded or roasted garlic sourdough, challah, bagels and more. Challah is particularly important to her, as “It feels special to be a part of someone’s Sabbath or holiday ritual.”

Velvel offers both sesame-seeded and plain challah. (Photo: Velvel Breads)

Customers can order either monthly via a subscription or à la carte. The menu may change month-to-month based on seasonality and what Hannah is interested in making. Some items, like sour dough, challah and bagels, stay on the menu.

Hannah also makes cookies, pies, babka and other yummy “noshes” that customers can pick up.

Seriously, I just want to dive into this goodness. (photo: Velvel Breads)

I had the chance to try the challah, bagels, cookies and some of her other baked offerings, and they were awesome.

The cookies were big, crunchy outside and soft. We have the chocolate chip, where were a great combo of chocolatey and salty with sea salt on the top.

Crunchy outside, soft chocolatey inside with a touch of sea salt is a great description of a great cookie.

The challah was extremely soft, slightly crunchy top, very gentle flavor. You're not going to make a sandwich with this, you are more likely to rip pieces off and eat them, over and over again, until oops, you realize you just ate half the loaf.

That’s a pretty perfect-looking challah.

Soft insides of the challah… with a little honey on a slice.

Bagels are firm, crusty on the outside and when cut or ripped open (oh the aroma) soft on the inside. Perfect as a platform for cream cheese, some lox, a tomato and a couple of onion slices…

New menus go live at the end of each month so customers can pick their subscriptions, or for those who want less, can pick and choose via the à la carte option.

According to Hannah, sales have been strong from the very beginning. So be forewarned, she sells out the monthly subscriptions early!

Learn more at Velvel Breads where you can check out Hannah’s menu and sign up for her free newsletter to learn about the newest additions and monthly subscriptions.