Challah Bread Recipe
This is the bread usually used for our Lord’s Day celebrations.
Makes 1 loaf, enough for an 8 person Lord’s Day and some leftovers…
Ingredients Needed
| yeast | 1.5TBs | This is the equivalent of 1.5 small active dry yeast packets (in USA) |
| warm water | 1 Cup | |
| eggs beaten | 2 | |
| honey | 3/4 Cup | You can use less (down to 1/2C) if you prefer bread to be less sweet. |
| oil | 1 Cup | |
| salt | 1 teaspoon | |
| plain white flour | 6 Cups | You may need more depending on the flour and other ingredients |
Note: when doing this smaller version, I use a KitchenAid mixer and mix all the ingredients in there - works like a charm.
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ORGINAL LARGE RECIPE:
Makes 2-3 loaves, enough for a 15-20 person Lord’s Day and some leftovers…
Ingredients Needed
| yeast | 2.5TBs | This is the equivalent of 3 small active dry yeast packets (in USA) |
| warm water | 2 Cups | |
| eggs beaten | 3 | |
| honey | 1.5 Cups | You can use less (down to 1C) if you prefer bread to be less sweet. |
| oil | 1.75 Cups | |
| salt | 1 TBs | |
| plain white flour | 11/12 Cups | You may need more depending on the flour and other ingredients |
| poppy seeds | 1 TBs | Optional, I usually skip these |
1 Cup = 11 fl. oz
Preparation
- In medium sized bowl
- Dissolve yeast in warm water (if it’s too hot it will kill the yeast ya muppet – only useful for Good Friday)
- Add a little sugar (like half a small teaspoon)
- Stir until it’s all dissolved
- Let sit for at least 5 mins til the yeast does the bubbly action…meanwhile…
- In the biggest bowl you have:
- Beat eggs,
- Add oil
- Add honey (oil first makes honey stick less to your cup!)
- Add your bubbly yeast to the big bowl and stir
- Combine the salt and flour together (if you put the salt straight into the wet yeast mixture, it’ll kill off some of the yeast)
- Add flour mixture to the yeast mixture
- Stir and then knead
- add more flour as necessary (it should no longer stick to your hands, but still be moist)
- Let rise for about 1.5 hours until it’s doubled
- Shape into pretty braided loaves
- Let rise again (Messianic Jewish bread) for 30 mins (max – i.e. don’t let it rise too long or it’ll flop when you bake it. You can skip this phase if you don’t have the time to let it rise: the result will be a slightly thicker bread.)
- Glaze with beaten egg and poppy seed it
- Bake at 330 for 30-45 mins
- Use an air tray (a double bottomed pan) if possible – that’ll help prevent the bottom burning!
- Put it in the middle of your oven if you can. (Don’t put it on the bottom shelf in the oven – it tends to be too hot!)
- The bread is done when the underside is slightly brown
Typed up by Paul jordan, commented by him and Nico. Mary Miklosovic Sr. (the great!) is the originator of this recipe.
UK equivalents
yeast 3TBs – 3 packets of active dry yeast
warm water 2 Cups – 16oz
eggs beaten 3
honey 1C – 8oz
oil 1.75C – 14oz
salt 1 TBs – 1 big spoon
plain white flour 10C – 1.5kg (sometimes a bit more than that)