Challah Bread
A soft yeast bread; easy to make, it just takes time to make it. Well worth the investment of time!
Equipment
- Electric mixer with dough hook attachment.
Ingredients
- 1 packet yeast
- ¾ cup warm water
- ⅓ cup packed brown sugar
- 2 tbsp honey
- 2 eggs, 1 for the dough, and 1 beaten for basting the loaf
- 1 tsp salt
- ¼ cup vegetable oil
- 3-4 cups all purpose flour
- toasted sesame seeds, optional
Instructions
- Stir together warm water and yeast. Let sit for 5 minutes until slightly bubbly.
- Place brown sugar, honey, egg, salt and vegetable oil in a large mixing bowl. Add foamy yeast water.
- Using the dough hook attachment on your mixer start adding flour to the yeast/sugar/honey/egg/salt/oil mixture. Begin with 2 cups flour and continue adding flour a little at a time until dough forms a ball.
- Continue to mix in flour until dough is not too sticky.
- Place dough in an oiled bowl and cover with plastic wrap.
- Let dough rise for 3-5 hours; until dough has doubled in size.
- Turn dough out onto a lightly floured surace. Divide dough into 3 equal portions.
- Using your hands, roll out each protion of dough into a long rope. Try to roll dough out into 3 equal lenghts and equal thickness.
- Braid the dough together. Pinch ends together and tuck them under loaf. Place the braided loaf onto an oiled cookie sheet.
- Brush loaf with beaten egg.
- Sprinkle with toasted sesame seeds if desired.
- Allow dough to rise again until puffy, about 30-60 minutes.
- While dough is rising for the second time, preheat oven to 350°F.
- Bake loaf for 25-30 minutes or until loaf is a deep golden brown.