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Challah
9 cups flour
1 T. plus 1 t. salt
1 cup sugar
2 ounces fresh yeast or you can use the dry yeast
2 eggs
1/2 cup oil
2 1/2 cups warm water
Dissolve yeast in sugar and water and let it bubble up. While you wait for the yeast, measure the flour and salt into a large bowl. When the yeast water is all bubbly on top, pour into the flour mixture, add eggs and oil. Mix in and kneed (more flour if needed for right texture)add raisins if you like. let it rise one hour. Shape into round challahs (make a rope and coil it around itself) after shaping let it rise another 1/2 hour, then bake at 350 for 45 minutes.
This is a really good recipe (I once complained to my friend that my challah’s are AWFUL and she said try MY recipe and Boruch Hashem, great challah every time! Shanah Tovah!
Sounds like a lot of sugar, but I dont like such sweet challah. I might try it for Rosh Hashana though!! Thanks for the recipe.
BTW – isnt this in the intermediary amount of flour that you are supposed to avoid? I honestly dont make challah very often (and use enough so that I can do hafreshes challah with a bracha) but I thought this was the strange realm where people werent 100% sure if you are supposed to make a bracha. Would love to hear any knowledge on this!
Shindy,
Try putting the challa in the freezer and taking it out a few hours before Shabbos. At some point (preferable when the challa is pretty much defrosted) put it in the oven for about 20 minutes on a low setting or until it gets crisped. I find that it comes out any time as delicious as fresh challa (which I barely ever have because I am way to nervous to make Challa on Friday!)
You’ll get to do the mitzva of Hafrashas Challa as well as make more than one batch at a time. Try it. (you don’t have to tell your family it’s frozen; they will probably never know!)
The other way to make more but have fresh is to make the dough, let it rise, shape it, then IMMEDIATELY put it in the freezer. Once they’re frozen solid wrap each in a piece of parchment paper and put them in a big Ziploc. On Friday morning take them out and let them defrost & rise, I was told to let them rise until they are no longer tacky(sticky) to the touch. Bake as usual. BTW this is what Kinneret challah are.
FANTASTIC CHALLAH RECIPE
for a bread machine, but can be done by hand
2 eggs
6 tbs oil
5 tbs sugar
3/4 cup hot water
1 tsp salt
3 cups flour
2 1/4 tsp yeast or 1 package dry yeast
follow instructions on bread machine or make as you would any recipe by hand
shape let rise and bake for 19 minutes on 375 degrees
if you like it well done, leave in for 2 more minutes.
This only makes 2 regular sized challah or one very large challah, but it is worth it. The first word out of everyones mouth after Hamotzi is YUM!
Forgot to add to my recipe to brush with a beaten egg before putting in the oven
one may also sprinkle with sesame or poppy seeds .
And one can add in raisins before shaping
Shindy – my wife’s been making this recipe for over 15 years – delicious every time. She adds: if you want to freeze challah – wrap it in plastic wrap WHILE STILL WARM. Make sure that it’s totally covered, then slip into the freezer. Comes out tasting totally fresh.
can someone please help!!! i made round challahs today for YT and they fell over. why does that happen when they rise? they were beautiful bee hive shapes.
jl-How did you braid them?
If you wrap challahs while warm, they will get soggy from the steam that condenses.
K let me clarify my issue. I made round challahs for RH I tried the new method of rolling out the dough making jelly roll style ropes and coiling it around for round bee hive looking challahs. WHen they rose they fell over and the top of the beehive was like on the side.
Doubling a challah recipe to freeze half does not necessarily allow you to say a bracha on hafrashas challah. Some Poskim hold that since the dough was made to be split up it does not all count together to the minimum quantity. Ask your Rav.
I think both these recipes will work for regular, long, challos also. In case anyone was confused.
I just wanted to add for those that might not know. When we first got married my wife thought she would just make a big batch of dough when she would have time, cut it up and freeze it for multiple Shabbosim. Sine it was just the two of us, we didn’t really need that much challah at all. We called the mechaber of the sefer “Guidlines” to find out if this was OK.
It turns out that you can only make a bracha on hafrashas challah if you are BAKING the shiur that you need for the bracha. Speak to your LOR or p_b_a for more info.
Ok jl- try this:
Roll out 4 strands and leave the center of the strand a little thicker than the sides(should look like a small bump).
Put 2 strand downward side by side of each other.
Put 1 strand across-on top of those two.
Put the last strand downward again on top of all.
Now you shoud have 3 strands going downward and 1 strand across.
Now braid the two ends that have 3 strands like a simple braid.
Now it should look like one braid going downward and a single strand across.
Then you fold under the top braid under the challah(very loosely), and also fold under the bottom part of the braid underneathe the challah.
Fold each side of the single strand under the challah too.
Now the challah should look somewhat round. When placed in a round pan and baked, you get a BEAUTIFUL round, braided Challah.
It’s a lot more simple than it sounds! I did it yesterday for the first time and I’m so proud of them!
I do my rounds a little differently:
Roll out 4 strands
Put them in the shape of a tic-tac–toe board (two down, two across, but overlap like a weave). Leave a little space between the strands.
Now go around clockwise over-under once with each strand (ie, take top right and move it either over under the strand next to it – whichever looks right; then take next strand and do the same, all around.) Now reverse direction, going over-under counterclockwise.
I rarely have enough dough to go a third time around, but you could….
Flip the whole thing over and place in round pan.
BTW – i add cinnamon/sugar in 2 ways –
1- sprinkle the top with cinn/sugar after you egg it. You can egg it with the white only b/c the sugar helps brown it…BUT this way gets the underside of the challah deckel dirty (which is why I started doing it the other way,..,
2- slit each rope lengthwise, drizzle in sugar/cinnamon mix, close the slit … the kids love the “surprise”
in any case, a gut gebentshed year!
Littleema- yours sounds nice too!
I just don’t like the look of the coil. It makes the challah look commercial. A braided round challah IMO is more appealling to the eye!
anyone have any new good round challah braids, aside from the six and four braid ones…(start off sort of like a tic tac to and then braid small 3 braids , looks like a + sign, and tuck under all the braided pieces) and then the one that you make into tic tac to…
there’s a special recipe book just on challah it has great braids there. but anything else? (also aside from the snake/bee hive one)
i also have an excellent challah recipe i use all year round and sometimes even make whole wheat. (no one likes the whole wheat as much as the white) maybe i’ll post it next time.
We make balls and just drop them in the form of a circle (in a round pan of course) with a big ball in the middle.
Also what my mother does for Yontiff is she makes a topping and it makes the challah like cake.
The recipe is rather unhealthy, but once a year is okay 🙂
1 cup flour
1 cup sugar
1 cup marg
crumble it up with your hands until it forms a crumble and sprinkle on top of the challah before you bake it. (You could freeze it too.)
I hope you use the trans fat free marg.
sister bear, interesting! maybe ill try that!
JFTR, the topping would probably also work with oil, it might not taste as good, but it’ll be a whole lot healthier.
I’ve never tried this, but why not just put some cinnamon in with the sugar before its mixed (if its not being used only for yeast)?
btw, SDHN, how do you sift the flour when you make it whole wheat? I find that the whole wheat grains are too big for the screen so I end up with white flour. Anyone else have this issue?
kapusta, good point, it’s hard because the pieces stay behind, so either we check that very well, after everything else is sifted and toss it back in with the rest of the flour. Or i know someone who throws it out, which i see no point in doing because than most of the “whole grain” is gone.
BTW, when we do make whole wheat challah we let it rise for much longer and use Wheat glutten to make it fluffier and not sooo heavy.
For those interested there’s also something called White Whole Wheat flour, by king Arthur. It’s better than pure whole wheat. (i don’t really understand how it can be WhITE whole wheat but whatever.) i wouldn’t know where to tell you to buy it in NY, i’m OOT.
What we think of as “white flour” is really just refined flour, as opposed to whole, unrefined flour. In reality, “white flour” is flour that comes from white wheat, as opposed to red wheat. All-purpose flour is made from refined red wheat; whole wheat flour is made from unrefined red wheat; white whole wheat flour is made from unrefined white wheat. Make sense?
White whole wheat flour is great for people who don’t like the taste of whole wheat, because the white wheat has a milder taste than the red wheat, making the use of unrefined flour more palatable.
so interesting! I never knew the difference either. Thanks!
Some raisins in this would make it a good hallah for the high holidays.
Anyone have a REALLY awesome knock your socks off recipe for regular challah (not whole wheat)with absolutely no eggs in it (and what can be used to glaze it, in that case)?
You can use margarine as a glaze.
oomis: most water challa recipes have no eggs, and you can spice up just about any dough with sprouted grain, pine nuts, hydrated rosemary, or poppy/onion. A really crowd pleasing top for my (sorry) whole grain sourdough challa, is salted tops. Leave out some salt, spray the tops with water and sprinkle with kosher salt. And I made round ‘challa’ for this last shabbos, closed bagel style saluf from a half whole wheat pizza dough recipe. With a sprinkle of zaatar, they went like hotcakes.
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