Challah – Jewish love in a bun.

I like Challah bread. I never buy it because at $7 bucks a loaf, too much moola for a little bread. The other day I was cruising Facebook and a friend Nikkita had pictures of a loaf of Challah that she had made. I didn’t believe she had done it at first. I asked her and yes indeed, she had created a lovely loaf. To see if she was shitting me, I asked her for a recipe. She told me to google it. That either means she was pulling the wool over my eyes, or it was easy. So I thought, “Let’s see if I can make some Challah!

Now as a Catholic, I get the biscuit = body of Christ and the wine = blood. That’s all straightforward. But did one have to be Jewish in order to make one of these sweet eggy loafs?  I googled Challah and saw about 1,000,000 recipes. Okay, Nikita was right. But which one should I choose. Long story short, here is the one I chose, the dough looked like shit when I first made it. You have to let it rise, then rise again, then braid it, then let it rise, then bake it. Jeeze! It takes less time to learn Yiddish!

Anyway, I stuck with it and I was rewarded with an unbelievable end result. Here is the recipe and to follow that, the picture evidence of my creation:

Yield: 2 loaves

5 1/2 – 6 c. flour

1 T dry yeast

1/2 c. sugar

1 1/4 t salt

6 T vegetable oil

1 1/2 c water plus 2 t

1 egg

——-

1. In a small bowl (#1), put yeast, 1 T sugar, 1/4 c water. Mix and let it stand for 15 minutes or until it bubbles.

2. In bowl #2 put all dry ingredients: flour, salt, sugar; mix them well.

3. In bowl #3 put all wet ingredients: water, oil, egg, and the yeast mixture after it’s bubbled; mix them well.

4. Mix everything together to make the dough. If the dough is too sticky, add a little flour until you can handle it. Use your hands to mix and press the mixture until it forms a ball of dough.*

5. Cover with a towel, and let the dough stand in a warm place for an hour or an hour and a half until it doubles in size. (It wasn’t doing it for me so I warmed the oven to 150degrees and stuck the dough in there for 30 minutes.)

6. Punch the dough to let out the air bubbles (this is the fun part!).

7. Let stand for 10 minutes.

8. For traditional-style challah, separate dough into six even pieces, roll each piece into a snake either between your hands or on the table, and make two braids. Turn the ends under so they look pretty. You may need to keep a little flour out to keep them from getting too sticky. Or, weave them into any design you like. Place them on greased and floured cookie sheets.

9. Beat one egg in a small bowl. Brush both braids with egg. Let them stand half an hour, and then brush with egg again. If you like, sprinkle with poppy or sesame seeds after the second egg wash.

10. Let rise for an hour or an hour and a half until the loaves double in size. Be patient!

11. Heat oven to 375F. Bake for 22-26 minutes or until the tops turn golden.

—

This bread makes the world’s best French Toast. We had it for breakfast Saturday morning and it was out of this world. Make it. Follow this recipe. And bless Nikita for opening my eyes to this lovely baked good. Cost of production: $2.50 a loaf.  Make two and you save yourself $10bucks. As a good friend, I brought a loaf to Paul, but his family lie in waiting. When he left for work they tippy-toed into the kitchen and left him mere scraps to sample. It is sad, but a cautionary tale. Bad things happen to good baking.

Note: If you look closely in the last picture (view of the cut loaf), you can see the ‘Last Supper” on the bottom right hand side. On the upper left is a relief of ‘Jonah and the Whale’ and on the bottom left is the ‘state of Texas’ and the ‘oldest Jonas brother riding a pony’.