Challah Bread
Every time I make bread at home, I instantly proclaim that it’s so good I should really do this more often. And then it’s usually a few months before I actually get around to making bread again.
If you have never made bread at home, this Challah bread would be a good thing to start with. The dough was very forgiving and easy to work with. A coworker of mine came over to make this bread with me on Sunday. We were having a French toast party at work and decided that homemade Challah would be much better than store-bought.
My coworker had never made bread before, but like I said, this dough was very easy to work with. Like most breads, this does require some time with all the rising and waiting. But that’s ok, we enjoyed watching some cheesey chick flick while our bread was doing it’s thing.
Everyone at work was impressed that we made the bread from scratch. And of course, it made some great French toast!
One Year Ago: Strawberry and Spinach Salad
Three Years Ago: Goat Cheese and Spinach Turkey Burgers
Challah Bread
Yield: 2 loaves
Ingredients:
1 1/2 packages active dry yeast (1 1/2 Tbsp)
1 Tbsp plus 1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup vegetable oil, plus more for greasing the bowl
5 eggs
1 Tbsp salt
8 to 8 1/2 cups flour
Directions:
In a large bowl, dissolve yeast and 1 tablespoon sugar in 1 3/4 cups lukewarm water.
Whisk oil into yeast, then beat in 4 eggs, one at a time, with remaining sugar and salt. Gradually add flour. When dough holds together, it is ready for kneading. (You can also use a mixer with a dough hook for both mixing and kneading, but be careful if using a standard size KitchenAid–it’s a bit much for it, though it can be done.)
Turn dough onto a floured surface and knead until smooth. Clean out bowl and grease it, then return dough to bowl. Cover with plastic wrap, and let rise in a warm place for 1 hour, until almost doubled in size. Dough may also rise in an oven that has been warmed to 150 degrees then turned off. Punch down dough, cover and let rise again in a warm place for another half-hour.
At this point, you can knead the raisins into the challah, if you’re using them, before forming the loaves. To make a 6-braid challah, either straight or circular, take half the dough and form it into 6 balls. With your hands, roll each ball into a strand about 12 inches long and 1 1/2 inches wide. Place the 6 in a row, parallel to one another. Pinch the tops of the strands together. Move the outside right strand over 2 strands. Then take the second strand from the left and move it to the far right. Take the outside left strand and move it over 2. Move second strand from the right over to the far left. Start over with the outside right strand. Continue this until all strands are braided. For a straight loaf, tuck ends underneath. For a circular loaf, twist into a circle, pinching ends together. Make a second loaf the same way. Place braided loaves on a greased cookie sheet with at least 2 inches in between.
Beat remaining egg and brush it on loaves. Either freeze breads or let rise another hour.
If baking immediately, preheat oven to 375 degrees and brush loaves again. Sprinkle bread with seeds, if using. If freezing, remove from freezer 5 hours before baking.
Bake in middle of oven for 30 to 40 minutes, or until golden. (If you have an instant read thermometer, you can take it out when it hits an internal temperature of 190 degrees.) Cool loaves on a rack.
Recipe as seen on Smitten Kitchen
I am Jen the Beantown Baker. Engineer by day and baking maven by night. Hubby serves as my #1 fan and official taste tester. We got hitched back in 2006. Barefoot. In the sand. With the waves crashing behind us. It was one of the best decisions we’ve ever made. 
These sound soo good!!!
I haven’t conquered my fear of yeast yet, but these look like a yummy way to try to.
They look great!
These look like the most delicious thing I could ever eat.
Yeast is definitely become less and less scarey for me…
Steph – you should so whip these up. They’re not too hard and worth the effort!
OH MY GOODNESS WOW! This is seriously the BESST idea!! THey look sooooo good!!
I’m glad you’re starting to conquer your fear of yeast! Those cupcakes are so photogenic. I’m getting hungry just looking at them.
what a great idea! They look great!
OMG these look awesome! I need one right now:)
Awesome!
And I saw on Cake Wrecks that today is National Cupcake Day.
These look so cute!
oh my gosh! YUM! Hubby LOVES cinnamon rolls. I’ll have to make these for him. He’ll probably eat 1/2 of them in a sitting!
My step son would go ape shit over these!!
He loves carrot cake, but no nuts or raisins – and cinnamon is his favorite spice so I made a cinnamon cream cheese frosting that would go perfect with these!!
Thanks for the idea!
I got my jam in the mail today. thank you so much! They were super yummy. I’ll be posting about it in the next couple of days. Rhubarb is my favorite and the vanilla peach bourbon….GENIUS! I’m a follower now. Thanks again.
What a cool idea, they look fabulous – yum!
Adorable! Love cinnamon rolls and cupcakes… bet these are amazing… and add that cream cheese frosting…yum! I so need these the next time I actually have time to make breakfast! Great job!
These are perfect for the office since they are served in their own paper! Not to mention, they are so cute…
They are SUPER cute! Kudos to you on working out your yeast fears! 🙂
~ingrid
adorable! But not too cute not to eat 😉
Super cute and beautiful!
Oh wow, these look amazing! I love cinnamon rolls… mmm… Great idea to bake them in cupcake liners! 🙂
So glad you liked them!
Great idea! They look so cute and delicious!
What a wonderful alternative to those expensive “bake and give” paper baking molds. THanks for the idea. (found you thru taste spotting.)
fabulous!! i’m going to bookmark this one!
These are so gorgeous! You’ve given me a great idea to try out for the next batch of cinnamon rolls I’m whipping up! 🙂
those are ADORABLE!!
LOVE THEM!
They would be good for my kid’s teachers!
YUM! Can’t wait to try this recipe and the strawberry basil ones also! Beautiful!
These are so ridiculously adorable! I bet they taste amazing simply because they’re so cute.
these look and sound soooo good! I’ll definitely have to try them soon!
These are adorable! Can’t wait to try them out 🙂
Those look AMAZING. I’m definitely gonna try those tomorrow morning. They would go amazing with coffee for breakfast. 🙂
I don’t bake much, but I have some wonderful recipes on my website you should check out.
http://www.nowthatsgood.net
Thanks!
Try using real Cinnamon in your recipe and reduce on the sugar.
The Cinnamon that we buy in the US is actually Cassia.
Breakfast? How about, snacks – lunch – and dinner!
I totally made these from her website and looved them so much. They were so delicious and smelled so good.
Yep Pat, most of what we use in the US is Cassia. I thank Alton Brown for knowing that little fact. You can find really good cinnamon at spice stores like Penzeys.
It’s been twenty years since I’ve baked anything that didn’t come from a box. I had some time today and tried these rolls. Not bad!! They came out pretty and my husband is taking them to work tomorrow. Husband says these are really great.
Those are adorable!!! Such an amazing idea I’m making these for my Mommy christmas party! 🙂
Idea for the frosting, try melting it a bit and then dipping the rolls in it. We used to do this at the bakery I worked at really quick way to make them look really professional! I also like the rustic look but it’s a fun way to make your coworkers jealous of your skills!
Great tip Alexandra!
These were great – made them last night to serve for a brunch this morning. 15 seconds in the microwave was all they needed to go from good to amazing and gooey. This was also my first time using yeast and now feeling confident. Thanks!
they look so good. I am looking for a good recipe, but the yeast scares me. but I think I will it give it a try soon…