Sivan Kobi comes from a family of bakers. Her grandparents, who were Holocaust survivors and ran a couple bakeries in Israel, encouraged her father Platiel to join the family business. He learned the trade and in 1980, he moved his wife and two children, including 4-year-old Sivan, to Los Angeles. There, he opened Sherman’s Bakery, the first of three bakeries he would own over the following 25 years. He was well known in the local Jewish community and even outside of it for his challah and sufganiyot, jelly-filled doughnuts traditionally made for Hanukkah.

Every year during the holiday, her father would smell of oil after the long hours he worked to meet the demand for his doughnuts. “I remember it being a very happy time, I love the holiday,” she adds. Though her father tragically passed away when he was 57 years old, Sivan has kept his memory alive through his recipes, all of which her mother saved. She regularly features home-cook versions of them on her Instagram account Sivan’s Kitchen where she makes the sufganiyot each year for Hanukkah. She’s riffed on the classic over the years: “I’ve tried sour cream in them, I’ve tried baking them, Air-Frying them…but nothing compares to the fried,” she says. 

For her, making jelly doughnuts and latkes is just as important as lighting candles or spinning the dreidel. In the years since her father passed, the doughnuts have taken on an even deeper meaning. “Still today, people stop me and say ‘Sherman’s sufganiyot are like no one else’s, I still have the taste in my mouth, if only I could eat them again,’” Sivan shares. Luckily, if they’re willing to try frying at home, they can.

Find more Hanukkah recipes in our holiday collection.