I told my husband that I want to marry this bread on our walk this morning. I was barely kidding.
I started making Challah a few years ago while living out west. Although I’ve always been passionate about baking, bread was new to me. The way only a few ingredients make something so delicious intrigues me. One of the first “beginner bread recipes” I tried was Challah. I was so pleased with how it turned out that I’ve been making it since! Through the years I’ve tweaked the recipe to get the right dough consistency and to avoid seed oils in my diet. In this post, you will find step-by-step instructions on making the dough, rise times, shaping, and braiding. I hope you enjoy!
As always, you can see my other recipes and posts on ladyhearth.com under the blog tab.
If by some miracle you have leftover bread after a couple days, this bread makes AMAZING French toast. Here are some more recipes you can try with leftovers.
Here are the links to the ingredients I used:
- Unbleached bread flour
- Fleischmann’s active dry yeast
- Redmonds salt
- Raw Honey
- Unfiltered organic extra virgin olive oil
- Vital farms eggs
Challah [to impress your friends]
Equipment
- 1 stand mixer
- 1 bowl
- 1 baking sheet
- 1 food scale
- 1 basting brush silicone
Ingredients
- 4 cups unbleached bread flour I prefer king arthur baking co. flour
- 1 tbsp dry active yeast
- 2 tsp salt
- 3/4 cup warm water
- 1/4 cup olive oil extra virgin
- 1/4 cup honey organic, raw
- 4 eggs
Instructions
- Gather Ingredients.
- In the bowl of the stand mixer, add 3/4 cup warm water and 1 TBSP active dry yeast. Wait 3-5 minutes until foamy. Add 1/4 cup olive oil and 1/4 cup honey. Mix until well combined.
- Next add 4 cups flour, 2 teaspoons of salt, and 3 of the eggs. Leave one remaining egg for the egg wash on top of the loaf.
- Using dough hook, mix on low to medium speed 5-7 minutes until a wet, loose dough is formed.
- With wet or flour dusted hands, form the dough into a loose ball and place in a greased bowl. Cover with plastic wrap. Allow to rise in a warm space until doubled in size (2-3 hours)
- Once doubled in size, take dough out of bowl and cut into 4 even pieces. Personally, I weigh my pieces to ensure uniformity. They should each weigh approximately 266 grams. This is important for the braid. Shape the pieces into 4 long strands (approximately 18 inches in length). The dough will deflate. This is okay.
- Follow pictures shown to weave dough into a round braid, tucking the ends underneath the loaf. Place on parchment paper-lined baking sheet and allow loaf to rise an additional hour or so.
- preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.
- Prepare egg wash by beating egg in a small bowl until the egg white and egg yolk are indistinguishable. Brush a thin layer of egg mixture onto the dough using a basting brush.
- bake loaf at 350 degrees Fahrenheit for 35 minutes. Personally, I like to brush more egg wash onto the loaf at the 25 minute mark for extra shininess on the crust.
- Allow to cool for 2 hours prior to slicing (but good luck waiting that long!)
Notes
Round-Braid Step-by-Step Tutorial:
Step one: divide risen dough into four equal pieces. Roll into 18 inch strands.
Step 2: Weave two of the rolled pieces over the remaining two pieces of rolled dough.
Step 3: Weave the top piece of each set of strands over the top of it’s neighbor.
Step 4: Following the same pattern, but in the opposite direction, weave the piece now under the strands over the strand to it’s left. Tuck ends underneath.
If these directions are still too confusing, here is a video tutorial.
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