Challah Bread - Home Cooking

Challah Bread

Makes a 1 pound loaf

1/2 cup water
1 egg
2 T. margerine - cut in pieces
1 yeast
1 egg yolk
1 T. water

Preparation -
Add water, egg, margarine, flour, salt sugar, and yeast to bread machine pan. Select the dough only cycle. When dough cycle is complete, remove dough from bread machine. tsp.salt

2 cups bread flour

4 tsp. sugar

1 1/2 tsp. active dry Place on a lightly floured board. Knead in just enough flour to make dough easy to handle. Divide the dough in 2 pieces, with about 2/3 of the dough in one piece and the remaining 1/3 of dough in the other. Divide the larger piece into 3 equal pieces. Roll each of these 3 pieces into 12" ropes. Place the 3 ropes on a greased baking sheet. Braid the ropes together loosely and pinch to seal the ends. Divide the remaining smaller piece of dough piece into 3 equal pieces. Roll each of these pieces into 10" ropes and braid them together loosely. Place this small braid on top of the larger braid. Pinch ends to seal the braids together.

Cover and let rise in warm place until almost doubled in size - about 20 minutes. Beat egg yolk with 1 tablespoon water. Brush egg/water mixture over bread braids. Bake at 375º for 25 to 30 minutes. Loosely cover the loaf with foil after 15 minutes of baking time to prevent over browning. Cool loaf on a wire rack.