Hanukkah

Our love runs deep.

Plus, five other brilliant latke tips from the author of Sababa, Adeena Sussman.

Every cookie you'll need to celebrate the season and to send across the country.

Shannon Sharna explains how to braid challah bread in four different styles.

Use this easy-to-follow recipe to create a 3-strand, 4-strand, or 6-strand challah.

Because nobody wants to present their loved ones with a smushed cake or stale cookies!

It's easy enough to enjoy as an any day side, but elegant enough for your holiday table.

Crispy on the outside, buttery and tender on the inside.

Big, bold flavors without a hint of sweetness.

Find fun barware, customizable kitchen tools, pet accessories, and more.

Decadent, fudgy, and delicious.

It's like a big, warm hug.

Did we mention it's topped with caramelized onion sour cream?

It apparently takes less time than traditional methods, too.

This clever twist on the classic cookie is bursting with cinnamon and brown sugar-sweetened pecans.

If you have any left over, that is.

We included the brisket, of course.

It tastes even better on day two.

Try this Hungarian twist on classic kugel this year.

It tastes best with latkes, of course.

Classic beef brisket in a fraction of the time? Sign us up.

This is the one worthy of your holiday table.

It breaks all the rules — and yet it totally works.

Use this smart baking trick on any loaf of homemade bread.

The recipe comes from Jewish baking expert Marcy Goldman, so we knew we were in good hands.

She has a clever trick for braiding perfect strands.

So crispy, so golden, so good.

Everyone celebrating Hanukkah likely has slightly different food traditions and recipe favorites, but the staples are frequently the same: perfectly cooked brisket and crispy latkes, plus a dessert spread that preferably includes as much rugelach, sufganiyot, and babka as possible. No matter which dish is your favorite, these festive recipes are perfect for Hanukkah and guaranteed to please a crowd.

Sufganiyot are Israeli jelly doughnuts that are common Hanukkah holiday fare. Crisp on the outside, fluffy and tender and bursting with jelly, fresh doughnuts are a divine treat you can make at home when you wan to spend an afternoon baking.

After running out to purchase these cauliflower pancakes (aka latkes), heating them up in our kitchen convection oven, and wafting the scent of crispy Parmesan throughout the office, my coworkers were dying to know: Where did I get these? “Cauliflower Joe’s,” I told them. “I mean Trader Joe’s!

There is no resisting rugelach, no matter how nubbly or imperfectly rolled. They’re buttery, flaky, and just the right amount of sweet. You can fill them with anything from ground nuts and honey to peanut butter and chocolate — the only real constant is using cream cheese to make a super-tender dough. Here’s how you can make them at home. I am a student of the Dorie Greenspan School of Rugelach.

We tried five classic latke recipes to find the easiest, simplest, tastiest method for latkes at home.

Kids ruin everything. Really (not really, but you see where this is going). You can’t enjoy a great night out without worrying about a hangover the next day. Every trip you plan, you think out worst-case scenarios, pack a great quantity of medicine, and invariably freak out when the airline messes up your seats and places you far away from your toddler. They especially ruin lazy holidays.

10 tips from latke field research!

Real talk: If you haven't been betting with food, you've been playing it wrong.

Not to generalize or anything, but we Jews love us some bagels. We typically eat them on one of the holiest days of the year. We eat them with just a schmear of cream cheese or piled high with lox, onions, capers, and more. So it’s no surprise that we’re starting to see bagel-themed Hanukkah menorahs all around the country. Last year, just for fun, the Chabad in Bethesda, Maryland, built a 10-foot menorah out of 400 assorted bagels from Goldberg’s New York Bagels.

This crisp, bubbly pitcher drink pairs perfectly with potato latkes.

Yes, definitely latkes, but there are other tasty things, too.

Make latkes. Pop bottles.

Fried jelly doughnuts, called sufganiyot, are a common Hanukkah treat in Israel, and are increasingly popular in the United States. But while homemade doughnuts filled with strawberry or raspberry jam are delicious as a once-in-a-while treat, they make the house smell like fried food and leave a pesky amount of cooking oil behind to dispose of. These gougères, which come sandwiched with fig preserves, offer a savory, sophisticated twist on sufganiyot.

Apple sauce and sour cream still required.

According to the data, millennials are drinking #allthewine. A study from the Wine Market Council, an industry nonprofit, found that millennials drank 42 percent of all the wine drunk in the United States in 2015, more than any other age group — an average of three glasses per sitting, to be exact. In seemingly unrelated news: Neither Baby Boomers, Gen Xers, or millennials seem to want their parents’ stuff. These two things are, in fact, related, though!

Bubbly Champagne makes the perfect, effervescent pairing for potato latkes and other fried foods served on Hanukkah. Here, apple cider enhanced with homemade fennel seed syrup and offset with a splash of lemon juice puts a cozy, winter-friendly spin on a classic Champagne bellini. The fennel syrup is simple to prepare and keeps well in the fridge, making it the perfect prep-ahead base for holiday cocktails.

While there are plenty of Hanukkah decorations on the market, there are very few I actually want to buy. Seriously, why are most of them just cardboard printouts of cartoon-looking dreidels? This year, I’ve decided to take matters into my own hands and make my own decorations. This decision took me down a rabbit hole of lots and lots of time spent on Pinterest. I eventually landed on a theme: crafts featuring gelt! I love chocolate and all things gold, so it was a no-brainer.

A delightful take on the classic veggie platter dip.

Here’s what’s going to make this dish a future family classic: The sweet and tangy sauce laced with tender onions and just the right amount of spices, fall-apart brisket that will make the house smell incredible, and easy cooking that means you get to reap the benefits of this home-cooked meal even when your to-do list is a mile long. Serve this with rice, couscous, or a thick chunk of bread on the side to mop the extra sauce and you will not be sorry.

Individual knots of challah bread, rich with eggs and ready for a slathering of butter.

Latkes get all the attention this time of year — as they should, latkes are awesome — but another Hanukkah treat has been gaining in popularity stateside in recent years. Put your hands together for the jelly doughnut. What the two have in common symbolically is also the ingredient that makes both so delicious: oil.

Whether it’s the hot oil or the cleanup, there’s certainly some work involved with frying at home, but if the freshest yeasted doughnuts are what you’re after, then making them at home — even if you only do it once a year — is worth the effort. To make frying doughnuts an experience you want to repeat, there are a few key mistakes to avoid. Here’s what you need to steer clear of for success.

Hanukkah is eight nights long. That’s a lot of nights, especially since most of us don’t get eight (or any) days off for this holiday. So, with only a little time each night, how can you still make each night special? Here are eight ideas that require little effort, but deliver big rewards. Gelt are chocolate coins that are often the prize for the traditional Hanukkah game of dreidel.

During Hanukkah (and well beyond), there are bound to be many briskets gracing tables around America. Braised brisket takes time, but a great brisket is not hard to bring to the table. These seven simple tips will help you make a better brisket every time. There’s a delicate balance here. Leave too much fat and the braising liquid you’re left with will be greasy. However, you don’t want to cut off too much fat; fat equals flavor in the final dish.

If you haven’t already noticed, Mason jars continue to be everywhere, whether they’re used as a water glass or to transport your lunch salad. They also make for a rustic, practical, and affordable vessel for food gifts. Load them with granola, or pancake mix and consider that long list of gifts you need for family and friends taken care of.

We totally get why people make popcorn garlands: they’re relatively easy to do, popcorn is lightweight, and you can get a big bag of kernels for, like, $10. Great! But why stop there? We raided a candy shop to find fun treats that’ll string up just as well. Unless otherwise noted, we made these with a sewing needle and some waxed floss, which conveniently comes in white (regular) or red (cinnamon!).

A Jewish family of four sharing a plate of sesame chicken on Christmas Day: It’s a holiday tradition for so many of this country’s 5 million Jews. Indeed, it was a tradition throughout my own childhood. Every year — without fail — we’d hop in the station wagon (in later years, the van) in Albany, New York, and make the 15-minute drive to Dumpling House. It was a bit like a mini-pilgrimage in the town nicknamed “Smallbany.

One of the foods I most long for from my childhood bopping around Jewish delicatessens in New York and Los Angeles is the humble bowl of matzo ball soup: a mountain of tender dumplings surrounded by rich stock and not much else. As a child I would nibble each tender spoonful, carefully whittling down my knaidel (as “matzo ball” is called in Yiddish). I felt comforted and loved, not from my grandmother’s kitchen, but by those fascinating, mostly ancient servers who dished it up.

I love all of the cleverly crafted pans for the holidays, and Nordic Ware usually has the best. This year I’m admiring this snowflake pan, which has the added benefit of making a cake that’s easy to cut and serve. The cake that turns out of this pan has deeply imprinted lines to help you cut or even pull the pieces apart.

Oh, Hanukkah — I adore you. Always have. Even as a kid, I drew to the warmth of the hanukiyah (holiday menorah) as though to a cozy fireplace. Little did I know I was tapping into the very heart of the holiday. And that is the inspiration for this simple and hearty make-ahead Hanukkah dinner menu.

French macarons may be all the rage, but don’t dismiss the humble macaroon, which is derived from marzipan — a smooth paste of blanched almonds and sugar that, when mixed with egg white and baked, turns into chewy little gems. And macaroons are a heck of a lot easier to make than a DIY Ladurée project. It wasn’t always so simple. My aunt Hanna once told me a story about the massapan that her mother, my Iraqi grandmother, use to make.

Salads are the unsung hero of my winter. Often overlooked — it’s too cold for salad! There are no tomatoes! — a winter salad challenges my creativity; surprises me with possibilities; and lifts my spirits on short, gray days and long winter nights. Yes, we have those in California where I live. Truth is, a refreshing winter salad is the essential counterpoint to hearty soups and braises.

This hearty winter braise is inspired by two of the most beloved dishes my safta (grandmother in Hebrew) used to make: kubbe — miniature meat-filled semolina dumplings simmered in a vegetable or meat stew — and long-cooked green beans, variously known as loubia or fasoulia. Here, herb-flecked semolina dumplings capture the flavor and nubbly texture of my safta’s original recipe without all the work.