I wanna make you challah

"On a scale of 1 to 10, rate your level of offence if I made a whole wheat challah."
"4," replied the Yeshiva Dropout.

Fortunately, my Observant Orthodox friend Sarah said that she had whole wheat challah all the time, so as long as it was dotted with raisins and braided in a circle for the holiday, I was good to go.

I scanned my Google Reader for challah recipes and originally came up with two. One linked out of Miche Mâche (they're not updating that often any more, but drop by and say hi because Dina is pregnant!) and another one from the always-beautiful 101 Cookbooks. The latter was a little too laborious for someone who was also doing an internship, so the Honey Vanilla Challah had temporarily won over until Deb posted her challah recipe.

I was a little hesitant at first, because I was already set on using her honey cake recipe. Would I be letting Smitten Kitchen run my part of the show?

Well, all I can say is, I'm glad my answer was yes.

Eggs are what separate challah from your typical bread; this recipe called for five - two for each of the two loaves that this recipe yields (according to Sarah, it's tradition to make two) and one for the egg wash which gives it its distinctive sheen.

The dough rises twice before you braid it, though I guess you can't tell from my "artistic" camera angles.

With the recipe's help, I tackled six-stranded braiding for the first time.



I then called it a night and threw it in the freezer to be baked right before the dinner. My boyfriend's Nikon D40 also ran out of batteries (and he'd forgotten to bring his charger), so the quality of the photos will now rapidly deteriorate.

My boyfriend was kind enough to take it out of the freezer to thaw and go for its final rising while I was at work; when I got back, it was time for the egg wash and to sprinkle some of my favourite ingredient—poppy seeds.

Then it's into the oven for about 30-40 minutes.


It's good eaten straight up, but more than one foodie has sung the virtues of challah French toast, so I couldn't resist.

Usually I'd post the recipe here, but I'm surprisingly exhausted despite dodging homework for the last two evenings and relatively adequate sleep (7 hours) last night. Also, Deb does a great job with the recipe (despite the lack of "helpful" metric measures, those Americans!) and describing the six-strand braiding technique. The only change I made was to use whole wheat flour instead of all-purpose flour, and I'm sure I wouldn't let myself throw in a whole teaspoon of salt.

Instead, I'll let the Spice Girls make you "challah".