Name: Luba Tooter Cohen’s Babka
Yield: Serves 8 to 10
Cuisine: United States
Ingredients: 2 tablespoons (all-purpose) flour; 2 tablespoons sugar; ½ cup brown sugar; ½ cup (1 stick) butter, softened; One ¼-ounce package active dry yeast (about 1 tablespoon), or one ⅗-ounce cake compressed yeast; 4 tablespoons butter, melted; ½ cup sugar; 1 cup milk, heated until warm but not hot; ½ teaspoon cinnamon; 1 tablespoon grated lemon zest; 3½ cups (all-purpose) flour; ½ cup raisins; ¼ teaspoon salt; ½ cup chopped pecans; 3 eggs

Preparation info

Serves
8 to 10

Difficulty
Medium

Appears in

Southern Cakes

By Nancie McDermott

Published 2007

About

Born in Odessa, Russia, Luba Tooter immigrated to America with her family as a young girl in 1913. Marriage to Jimmy Cohen took her from New York City to Blytheville, Arkansas, where she raised a family, weaving her European Jewish heritage into her Southern American Jewish life. Did she arrive in America clutching this Old World coffee cake recipe in her hand? Not exactly. She learned it from her daughter-in-law, Heddy Horowitz Cohen, in t