The simple challah dough is made with eggs, water, flour, oil, yeast
,honey and salt. The bread is typically pale yellow in color because so
many eggs are used, and it has a rich flavor too.
Challah is eaten on Friday night and Saturday. It’s a Jewish plaited
bread or sabbath bread that is eaten with the first course on the
sabbath eve. It’s also eaten the next day at breakfast and lunch.
On Sunday, any leftover challah can be turned into French toast or bread and butter pudding.
Challah bread ingredients
Flour :550g or 4 and 1/4 cups (loosely packed)
Warm Water :210 ml or 3/4 cup +2 tbsp
Honey or sugar :50 g (1/4 cup sugar or 1/6 cup honey)
Salt : 1 and 1/2 tsp or 9g
Yeast :2 tsp or 6g
Vegetable oil :3 tbsp or 40 g
Eggs :2
How to make challah bread
Challah braided bread can be made in six simple steps
How to make challah
1.Prepare the dough
2.Proof the dough
3.Divide and let the dough rest
4.Shape the Challah rolls
5.Final Proofing
6.Bake the bread
1.Prepare the challah bread dough
It’s so easy to prepare this bread dough.
Into a bowl pour in the water, salt,sugar,oil,eggs,yeast and combine all together.
Now add in the flour and mix it together to form a shaggy mass of dough.
Transfer the dough on to a clean work surface and knead the dough for 9-10 minutes.
After kneading ,our dough will be soft and smooth.
Place it into a bowl.
Cover it with a damp cloth or with a plastic film.
2.Proof the dough
Keep the covered bowl in a warm place for 45 minutes, so that the dough can ferment and rise ;which is the first proofing.
3.Divide and let the dough rest
After the first proofing, punch down the risen dough.
And then divide the dough into equal parts.I divided the dough into 2 equal parts and then each into six equal parts.
Roll each portion into a round ball.
Keep the dough balls, covered for around 8 minutes.
4.Shape the Challah braided bread
Roll out each dough ball and then shape it into an elongated cylindrical dough strip (around 20 cm ) by rolling.
Place each of them on the counter until we finish the rest of the rolls.And then take the first one, that we shaped.
Elongate the dough strand by pulling the dough and then rolling.
When it gain a length of around 30 cm, Keep it aside until we finish all the six.
Please watch the video to see how to braid a six strand challah bread.
Place the six strips parallel to each other and then pinch the top of strips together.
5.Final Rising
Before taking them for the final rising, we can give egg wash.
In this simple challah recipe we are doing double egg wash to get
that beautiful shine and golden color to our simple challah bread.
If you don’t want to give egg wash, you can skip this step.
Cover the tray with a plastic film and let it rest and proof for 90-120 minutes.
After the final rising let’s give one more egg wash and then sprinkle the top with some sesame seeds.
This will give a nice shine and golden brown color to our easy challah bread.
Now they look great and are ready to go in to the oven.
6.Bake the challah bread
Bake the challah bread in a 350F or 180 C preheated oven for 28-30 minutes or until it is golden brown in color .
After baking we will get soft and fluffy challah bread that are golden brown in color.
This challah breads are one of the best challah breads that we can make at home.
We can make wonderful challah buns or challah rolls with this same challah bread recipe.