A glazed, sugared round of twisted babka becomes a dazzling holiday wreath by Kora, a Filipino bakery in Long Island City, Queens. The filling woven throughout the brioche dough is the rich deep violet of puréed ube, the Filipino purple sweet potatoes. The babka is made in collaboration with Umamicart, an online Asian supermarket based in Brooklyn, which sells it and ships nationally. The plump wreath, 10 inches across, will serve at least 12. Just have some whipped cream or ice cream alongside or accompany it with leche flan.
Ube Babka Wreath, $69, umamicart.com.
D.I.Y. Hanukkah Cookies from Daniel Boulud
The artfulness of these Hanukkah treats depends on you. Daniel Boulud’s Épicerie Boulud has a new cookie kit for Hanukkah, the eight-day holiday that starts at sundown on Dec. 7 this year, with four pounds of sugar cookie dough (enough for at least 20 cookies), cutters in shapes like a dreidel and the star of David, and three applicator bags of icing in blue and white. The kit also includes a wooden dreidel and some chocolate Hanukkah gelt. It’s shipped frozen from Goldbelly, but if you’d rather not do the baking you’ll find the cookies, iced and ready to eat, at Épicerie Boulud near Lincoln Center.
Bake-at-Home Hanukkah Sugar Cookie Kit, $109.95, goldbelly.com; Hanukkah sugar cookies, $4 each, Épicerie Boulud, 1900 Broadway (64th Street), 212-595-9606, epicerieboulud.com.
The Art of Pasta, by the Metropolitan Museum
The Metropolitan Museum of Art pays homage to Italy with pasta this holiday season. The Met’s new assortment of six dry pastas, by Pastificio Di Martino, comes in a lavish gift box decorated with motifs from 16th-century Majolica pieces in the museum’s collection. There’s a pound each of penne mezzani rigate, tortiglioni, elicoidali, fresine, bucatini and linguine, $65. Grate your own Parmesan for serving, and think of the Mannerist painter Francesco Mazzola, known as Parmigianino; maybe pour yourself a Bellini to toast Giovanni Bellini while you’re at it. Pasta Di Martino has been making commemorative tins for years (and this year also has one for Barbie) .
Pastificio Di Martino boxes, store.metmuseum.org.
Free! Hot! Chocolate!
Angelina, the tearoom and confectionary that has been tempting sweets seekers since Antoine Rumpelmayer first opened it 120 years ago on the rue de Rivoli in Paris, is now global with two locations in Manhattan. For the holiday season, starting this weekend, it will have a cart dispensing cups of its justifiably acclaimed hot chocolate, free, from 5:30 to 7 p.m. under the awning of the Langham New York on Fifth Avenue. The dates are Fridays and Saturdays, Dec. 7 through 9, and 14 through 16. At 6 p.m. each day there will also be carolers. And if you’ve missed the celebrated hot chocolate from Maury Rubin’s City Bakery near Union Square, which closed four years ago, it’s back throughout the winter with milk and dark and boozy for happy hour; find it at a pop-up kiosk, Color of Chocolate, in the Urbanspace Vanderbilt food hall.
The Langham, New York, 400 Fifth Avenue (36th Street), langhamhotels.com; Urbanspace Vanderiblt, 230 Park Avenue (45th Street), 646-747-0810, colorofchocolate.com.
12 Days, Seven Fishes, 13 Desserts
You know the “12 Days of Christmas” and the Feast of the Seven Fishes. Add 13 desserts to the list. It’s a tradition in Provence, France, at the end of the Christmas dinner Le Gros Souper, with 13 representing Christ and the Twelve Apostles. Which 13 desserts to serve is not mandated, and this year, Brasserie Fouquet’s, the Parisian brasserie that now has an outpost in TriBeCa, is selling a box of them; $40, Dec. 14 through 25. They can also be ordered in the restaurant, $40. The desserts, by the executive pastry chef Michael Romano, include a mini bûche de Noël, cream puffs, a macaron, a financier, tartlets of chocolate and fruit, and more, all seasonally adorned. Tradition only requires a bite of each; they’re big enough to share. For pickup, orders must be placed at least a day in advance at 212-965-2584. It’s a good idea to refrigerate the pastries until ready to serve.
Brasserie Fouquet’s
, 456 Greenwich Street (Desbrosses Street), 917-965-2584, hotelsbarriere.com.
The History of Midwinter Festivals
Bright festivals in the dark of winter, European and pre-Christian, will be explained next week at a meeting of the Culinary Historians of New York by Cathy Kaufman, a food studies scholar. “Banish the Dark: Holiday Traditions,” on Dec. 6, will be held in person, and will include a reception with some dishes like brandade de morue and Twelfth Night cake.
6:30 p.m., Dec. 6, Irish Arts Center, 1040 Jackson Avenue (51st Avenue), Long Island City, Queens, $25 for members, $40 for nonmembers, $10 for students, plus fees, culinaryhistoriansny.org.
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