Challah

TIME4.5 hours MAKESOne large loaf, or two small loaves.

A light and extremely fluffy challah recipe.

INGREDIENTS

Dough

  • 7g instant yeast
  • 37g sugar
  • 2 large eggs
  • 1 large egg yolk
  • 78g oil (either olive oil or a neutral oil)
  • 1 tsp kosher salt
  • 2-3 cups of bread flour

Toppings

  • Poppy seeds (can swap this out for sesame seeds, or use a mix)
  • 1 egg
  • Splash of milk
  • Flaky salt

STEPS

Dough

  1. Mix yeast, 130ml of warm water, eggs, egg yolks, salt, sugar, and oil in a bowl of a stand mixer. Using the dough hook, beat on medium-low until mixture is combined1.

  2. Add the flour on medium speed and mix until combined and the dough comes together. Continue mixing until the dough is smooth and shiny. It should be tacky to touch but not sticky, about 5-8 minutes2.

  3. Turn the dough out onto a clean surface and knead for a few minutes by hand. Place dough in a lightly oiled large bowl, cover loosely, and leave to rise in a warm spot until doubled in size, about 1-1.5 hours.

  4. Punch down the dough, and leave it to rise for another 45 minutes, until doubled in size.

Braiding

For braiding the challah, I like to do a 6 strand braid.

  1. Dump the dough out onto the counter, and divide the dough into 6 even pieces. Form each piece tightly into a ball.

  2. Squish each ball flat into a pancake, and fold the top into the middle, and the bottom into the middle. Then, pinch the seam closed – the dough should not be in the shape of a cylinder. Roll each piece out to approximately 30cm – its okay if the ends taper into a point.

  3. Place two pieces end-to-end horizontally, and then place the remaining 4 pieces with the ends at the center, pointing towards you. Swap the two top strands, and take the strand at the back, and pull it down so that it is in the center of all the strands. Replace it with the second-last strand from the opposite side.

  4. Repeat this process (taking the strand at the back and placing it in the middle of the strands, replacing it with the second-last strand from the opposite side) until you have a braided loaf; fold the ends underneath the loaf to tidy it up.

  5. Make an egg wash with the egg, splash of milk, and a pinch of salt, and brust all over the challah using a pastry brush. Leave to rise in a warm spot for about an hour, until doubled in size.

Baking

  1. Preheat the oven to 200°C

  2. Brush the challah with another layer of egg wash, and sprinkle poppy seeds and flaky salt. Bake for 15 minutes before turning the challah around. Bake for another 10-15 minutes until evenly brown all over.

NOTES

Round challah

  • To make a round challah, instead divide the dough into 8 even pieces. Roll out each strand as above, but this time pair up the strands into 4 groups of 2.

    Place 2 of the groups horizontal, and 2 vertical crossing over at the middle, to make a square grid in the center. Then weave the grid; lift the top strand of the right vertical pair and slide the top horizontal pair under it. Do the same on the bottom left—lift the strand and slide the bottom pair under.

    Now, cross over each strand. Continue, crossing over alternate strands, until you have a circular shape; tuck the ends of the strands under the challah.

  1. I have tried making this with a tanzhong of 30g flour and 120g whole milk; simply reduce the water in the main recipe to about 50g. This works well, but the difference in the bread was too minimal for me to recognize, so I often leave this out. ↩︎
  2. You may need to increase the amount of flour to reach the tacky-but-not-sticky stage, it is very dependent on the type of flour and the humidity. ↩︎