Food for thought: Sweet Challah Bread

Today, I am sharing with you my family’s favorite Sweet Challah Bread Recipe. When baking bread, most of us are challenged with the preparation and baking time which could take 2-3 hours or more. Of course I feel the same way sometimes but when it comes to baking, don’t forget just like cooking… it’s all patience too.

Generally, Challah bread recipe you’ll find online used active dry yeast and could take 2-3 hours to make one depending on preparation techniques. For professional bakers, there are ways to cut preparation time but for beginners, I suggest to prepare the dough in a traditional way which is a lot easier. What I normally do, I bake two or more loaves of bread or different type of bread to save time. However, you can always replace the active dry yeast to instant dry yeast instead to cut preparation time to at least by an hour or half of the time.

So in this recipe, I used instant dry yeast but please feel free to use active dry yeast should you prefer. With the instant dry yeast, I spent only 70 minutes to make one. Honestly, you can hardly tell the difference taste wise whether you use the active dry yeast or instant dry yeast. Just be aware of the preparation steps using active dry yeast. Anyways, you’ll be the judge yourself….

INGREDIENTS:

• 2 eggs
• 1 C warm milk
• 1 C warm water
• 1/3 C vegetable oil
• 1 tbsp vanilla extract
• 1/3 C sour cream or mayonnaise
• 1/2 C sugar
• 1.5 tsp salt
• 2 tbsp instant dry yeast
• 4 C all purpose flour

Optional:

• 1 tbsp of sesame or poppy seeds
• 1 egg yolk

Preparation and Baking Time: 85 min

• Preheat oven to 350F
• Mix all dry ingredients
• In another bowl mix all other ingredients
• Fold into the dry mixture well
• Knead the dough for about 5-8 min
• Let it rise for 15 min or until dough doubled in size
• Knead again for another 5-8 min and cut into three parts
• Braid and let it rise in a non stick bread pan for 5-10 min or until doubled in size
• Brush with egg yolk and sprinkle with sesame or poppy seeds
• Bake it for 30 min

I hope you’ll enjoy it…. Cheers!