Jewish Sweet Bread Challah
Traditional Jewish bread for Friday night evening dinners. Braided and with fluffy inside.
Ingredients
- 4 cups (500 grams) all-purpose flour
- 1½ tablespoon dry yeast
- ¼ cup sugar
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 1¼ cups lukewarm water
- 1 egg
- ⅓ cup any vegetable oil - I like to use olive oil
For garnish:
- 1 egg beaten - egg wash
- 2 tablespoon sesame seeds
- 2 tablespoon pumpkin seeds
- 2 tablespoon poppy seeds
Instructions
- Mix all of the dry ingredients, except for the salt, in the stand mixer bowl.
- Attach the kneading hook and mix on slow speed.
- Gradually add oil, water, and egg while mixing.
- Add salt and knead for 4 minutes until dough is unified.
- Form the dough into a ball shape and let this rise in a greased bowl for an hour.
- Divide the dough into 2 pieces and let this rise again for half an hour.
- Divide each pieces to smaller pieces and create strands to braid the challah.
- Braid the strands to challahs. (In the pictures I made round challahs from 4 strands each. Watch the video below to see how to braid a 4 strands round challah)
- Heat the oven to 160°C / 325°F degrees with no fan - upper and lower heat.
- Brush the 2 braided challahs with the egg wash and let this rise again for another half an hour - if you are in a hurry, you can skip this step.
- Make another layer of egg wash and sprinkle all of the garnish seeds.
- Bake for 40-50 minutes –but pay attention after 40 minutes if the bread looks very golden then take them out of the oven!
- Serve and Shabbat Shalom!