Inviting an Old Favorite to the Hanukkah Table (Published 2007) (2024)

IT is probably impossible for many people to hear the word “babka” and not think of the “Seinfeld” episode in which Jerry and Elaine, desperate to bring a chocolate babka to a dinner party, angrily confront another customer at a bakery who gets the last one. They settle for cinnamon, even though Elaine calls it “a lesser babka.”

Jerry disagrees.

“Cinnamon takes a back seat to no babka,” he says. “Lesser babka? I think not!”

Babka evokes dogmatic opinions. The babka you knew as a child is the babka that you defend passionately as an adult. My husband, Allan, insists that his be dry. Some say fruit has no place in babka; others say it’s incomplete without it.

But babka became a Jewish favorite because Eastern European cooks found common ground.

“Babka comes from baba, a very tall, delicate yet rich yeast-risen cake eaten in Western Russia and Eastern Poland,” said Darra Goldstein, a professor of Russian at Williams College. “A very elaborate babka was eaten at Easter.”

“It can include rose oil, lemon zest, bitter almonds, cinnamon, cardamom, nutmeg, lemon, bergamot or rose water,” she said, “but the most basic one has the finest flour, yeast, milk, with a little sugar and lots of egg yolks.”

The Italians call their version panettone, the French baba au rhum, and the Viennese and Alsatians kugelhopf.