“There are people in the world so hungry, that God cannot appear to them except in the form of bread.” –Mahatma Gandhi

When I read Challah at Wikipedia, it means a special bread in Jewish cuisine. It’s usually braided and typically eaten on ceremonial occasions. The word is Biblical in origin. There are 2 different Challah based on the recipe, one with numerous eggs also called “egg bread” and the “water Challah” which can be made without eggs.

I became familiar with Challah bread when I was working for years at a restaurant that celebrate Jewish holidays. For this recipe, I chose the egg bread version where I found the recipe at seriouseats.com and I modified it to my liking.

I love eating Challah for breakfast toasted with butter. On the third day, if there is still some left over, I use it to make chocolate chip banana bread pudding.

Let’s get started! Gather all the ingredients: whole eggs, egg yolks, blooming yeast (have you read my quarantine pizza?), sugar, honey, salt, flour, and olive oil.

Mix all the ingredients together, in here I just stir everything with a butter knife.

Knead it until it’s smooth enough to shape like a round ball, cover the ball with plastic wrap, put damp towel on top, put it inside warm (not hot) oven, and let it rest for 1 hour.

After 1 hour, take the dough out, flip the ball, bottom side up, and fold the dough from the top portion to the middle of the dough, then let it back to rest for another hour.

After that, I divided the dough into 16 balls equally, because I intended to make 4 loaves of Challah.

Let it rest for 15 minutes before shaping to elongate the balls. With the palm of my hands I tried to elongate each ball into a 14-inch strand, until all 16 balls became 16 strands.

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Now it’s time to braid, starting with 4 strands: try to braid as best as you can and shape it accordingly. Do the same braiding with the rest of the strands, until you have 4 beautifully braided unbaked Challah.

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Make an egg wash by mixing one whole egg and 1 tablespoon water, then brush lightly over the loaves. Let the braided dough rest for 2 hours or until they double in size inside warm oven.

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After that, bake at 325⁰ F. for 30 minutes (or accordingly to your oven preference). You will know when it’s cooked because the color is golden brown, sound hollow when you tap on top of the loaves, and your kitchen smell oh so good. If you want it to be sure exactly, you can insert a cooking thermometer in the center of each loaves, and when it shows around 190 – 200⁰ F., then yes, your Challah is baked.

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Let it cool for one hour before slicing or tear it with your finger…

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Challah Recipe

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1000 grams organic whole wheat pastry flour
50 grams organic pure cane sugar
30 grams salt
10 grams instant dry yeast
270 grams organic whole eggs
230 grams organic egg yolks
150 grams lukewarm (110⁰ F.) water
100 grams organic raw honey
90 grams light olive oil