challah
- Put the yeast into a bread bowl. Add the water making sure it’s warm but not too hot this can kill the yeast! Add the sugar/honey to the yeast and water… it will start to bubble, let it! Then add the flour (you can use a mixture of whole wheat and white flour, wheat flour will make a denser loaf, if you want to use all wheat flour you’ll need extra yeast). Add the salt in with the flour. Add the butter/oil next. Add the eggs once the butter if melted has cooled. Mix together with a wooden spoon, bread mixer, or your hands.
- Dump the mixture out onto a floured workspace scraping the bowl as clean as possible. Knead until all the ingredients are combined and the dough bounces back when pressed down.
- Place the dough into the well-oiled bread bowl, twisting to coat the underside of the dough with oil and then flipping it over so the oiled part is facing up (keeps it from drying out). Cover with a damp cloth (keep the cloth damp). Place in a warm place, near a pilot light on the stove, near a heater, in the sun if not too hot. Let it double in size.
- Punch down and let it rise again.
- Once again punch down and form into I large or 2 small, braided loaves. Place on parchment paper on a cookie sheet. Brush with a beaten egg and sprinkle on top poppy or sesame seeds. Let it rise again (it should rise faster each time).
- The bread is ready when you flick it and it sounds like a tight-ish drum (if using a convection oven lower the temperature from 350 a bit)
- Let rest on a rack to cool a bit before slicing or tearing! XO
… if you are not used to baking bread then check out these other recipes and/or see YouTube for tips!
Challah recipes from Joan Nathan and Gloria Kaufer Greene.