One of my all-time favorite breads is Challah. I have been excited to try this particular recipe for many months, and I have skipped ahead in the book to make this bread this week. This recipe is located in the 5th chapter of the book. This chapter is called “The Sweeter Side”, and although Challah is a sweeter bread than say, white sandwich bread, I don’t consider it sweet like a cinnamon roll. I guess they needed a place to put this recipe, so they put it in the the sweeter side, but it isn’t the best place to put the recipe in my opinion.
Here are the ingredients: AP flour, yeast, salt, water, vegetable oil, eggs, and sugar. I neglected to measure out the sugar for the picture above, but there is a 1/4 cup of sugar in the recipe. Also, you’ll notice that the liquid is all water, not milk. Also, the fat is coming from the vegetable oil, and not butter.
The dough came together really nicely, and kneaded well on the mixer. I let it rise, and it doubled in size in about an hour, although the directions said to give it 1 1/2 – 2 hours. It didn’t need the 2 hours, as you can see in the picture. An hour was fine, but it was a warm day I guess.
After the rise, you have to divide the dough in 2 pieces, but one of the pieces is 1/3 of the dough, and the other is 2/3 of the dough. To each of these pieces, you divide evenly into 3 pieces.
Next you roll out the dough into 16 inch ropes. The dough was very easy to roll, very relaxed. It did not spring back — easy to work with for sure.
The next step was to braid the dough so you had a big braid, and a skinnier braid. Braiding the dough was very easy to do too.
The next step was to place the large braid on the baking tray, glaze it with egg glaze, and then place the skinnier braid on top. I glazed the top too, and left it to rise for an hour.
After an hour of rising, the dough really puffed up nicely. I did another glaze of egg wash, and put it into the oven for baking.
As you can see the bread came out of the oven looking amazing! A beautiful color and a delicious aroma. Also, it continued to puff up and grow, and compared to the original braids I made, the end product was so much bigger. The ends of the bread came undone during the baking however. I did not tuck them in well enough. I will do better at that next time. But overall, the bread turned out great. I let it cool before I tasted it.
The bread has a tight crumb, a pleasant taste, and a light and airy quality to it. It was delicious to eat, and I loved it. It is a perfect Challah bread recipe, and I will certainly make it again. I enthusiastically give this bread five out of five stars.
That’s the bread for the week. I hope you are having a good day, and if not, maybe tomorrow will be better for you. I hope so. Ok, peace out, and I will keep on baking.
Many Breads, One Body 