My Favorite Challah
Updated Feb. 3, 2025
- Total Time
- 1 hour
- Rating
- Comments
- Read comments
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Ingredients
- 1½packages active dry yeast (about 3½ teaspoons)
- 1tablespoon plus ½ cup sugar
- ½cup vegetable oil, more for greasing bowl
- 5large eggs
- 1tablespoon salt
- 8 to 8½cups all-purpose flour
- Poppy or sesame seeds for sprinkling
Preparation
- Step 1
In a large bowl, dissolve yeast and 1 tablespoon sugar in 1¾ cups lukewarm water.
- Step 2
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.)
- Step 3
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.
- Step 4
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 1½ 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.
- Step 5
Beat remaining egg and brush it on loaves. Either freeze breads or let rise another hour.
- Step 6
If baking immediately, preheat oven to 375 degrees and brush loaves again. If freezing, remove from freezer 5 hours before baking. Then dip your index finger in the egg wash, then into poppy or sesame seeds and then onto a mound of bread. Continue until bread is decorated with seeds.
- Step 7
Bake in middle of oven for 35 to 40 minutes, or until golden. Cool loaves on a rack.
Private Notes
Comments
Your illustration shows light bands of crust between the golden dark patches of crust. This comes from the rising in the oven revealing surfaces that had no egg wash. If you want that uniform brown crust, remove the loaf after 15 Minutes in the oven and reapply eggwash to the light areas that have appeared.
Recipe Quantities by Mass 3-1/2 tsp. active dry yeast = 9.9g 1 tbsp. sugar = 12.6g 1/2 cup sugar = 100g 1/2 cup vegetable oil = 120g 1 tbsp. salt = 17.07g 8 c. to 8-1/2 c. AP flour = 960g to 1020g
This is a beautiful challah recipe. The only problem is that the braiding instructions for the six-braid challah are incorrectly written. My father and I were baking it together and couldn't get the instructions to work (because it unbraids itself as it's written). I suggest an edit to the recipe with instructions more in line with this six-strand challah tutorial, http://toriavey.com/how-to/2010/08/challah-bread-part-2-how-to-braid-cha....
375 is too hot - an extremely dark crust vs. a golden one. I don’t mind that for my Sourdough but certainly not on a challah. I also have children who will be eating this and they’re not interested in eating burned bread. Wish I would have known … 350 as my previous recipe calls for next time for 30 min.
I fully know how unhinged this is, but— I LOVE this recipe and make it all the time with the only modification being a full volume replacement of the sugar for honey and a longer rise time. My seven-year-old dog has never previously stolen food, but this challah she steals constantly. She will let an egg fall to the ground, ignored, just to get the challah beneath it. So how could I not try replacing the water with beef broth and the seeds on top with dog biscuit crumble? The dough was disgusting but it is cooling now and she is about to be a very happy girl.
Followed the recipe to the tee! However I should have remove the bread after 30 minutes instead of 35 to 40 .. the bottom crust became super hard and I had to cut them out for my dog as hard treats! Lol Yes I was disappointed.. had hand kneaded the dough too. Everything was great except the timing is way off