May's Daring Bakers: Challah

May’s Daring Bakers’ Challenge was pretty twisted – Ruth from The Crafts of Mommyhood challenged us to make challah! Using recipes from all over, and tips from “A Taste of Challah,” by Tamar Ansh, she encouraged us to bake beautifully braided breads.

Challah has been on my list of things to try for a while, so I was pretty excited for this challenge.  I love making bread (or at least trying to make it) and challah is just so pretty.  I also love the cultural aspect of this challenge – Ruth provided a lot of explanation on the significance of challah in Jewish culture, and I really appreciate that.

Challah Fail

The first time I tried this, it didn’t go too well.  I used the “Easy Challah” recipe because I only had 2 eggs on hand.  I could tell early on that something was funky – the dough was really wet, and the rising didn’t work properly.  The loaves tasted OK, but they didn’t even pretend to be fluffy.

Just the dough

After I got over my laziness enough to pick up more eggs, I went for the “Honey White Challah” (because anything with honey can’t go too far wrong).  I ended up using about 8 cups of flour total.  Lucky for me, that was noted in the recipe – I always get nervous when I have to add a lot more flour to a bread recipe.  Everything went smoothly until the braiding.  I’m braiding challenged.  As you can see in the picture, I didn’t quite manage even a 3-strand braid.  Something went wrong there in that middle section where I sort of have 2 super wide strands.  The ends look like braids though.  As for the round one, it’s a little off center but it’s round and I’m calling it a victory.

Braids no more :(

With a bigger work surface and little more practice, I could make them much prettier.  It would also help if I stopped nibbling on the dough while I was trying to shape it.  Is it crazy that I like bread dough?  I mean, cookie dough is understandable, everyone likes that.  But bread dough?  I don’t get it, but I like it.

My second and worst mistake was underestimating the magnitude of the second rise.  This is NOT a one-cookie sheet project!  I left the loaves on the same cookie sheet (because I only own the one) and after the rise, they were stuck together.  I had a tough time separating them, and I lost anything resembling a braid when I moved the round bread to different pan (I had to resort to a 13×9 cake pan).  It was a sadness – I had been pretty proud of that braid.


Despite the less-than-perfect appearance of my loaves, the taste and texture are amazing!  This is definitely a thing I will try again.The finished product:

The Finished Product