{recipe} – challah bread

I’ve never once considered making my own bread, that is until I started dating my hubby and he made me a home made bread. He used a bread machine to make the dough and I watched how easy it was to make delicious bread at home.

Ever since then, we’ve made many breads at home including pizza dough. I like waking up early on Saturdays and do some baking or cooking before the baby wakes up. It’s my quiet moment and my time to savor and slow down my mornings. I recently bought a bread machine book and have already bookmarked a few breads I want to make. I want to work my way thru making 10, 20 or maybe 30 loaves?  I think that would be a fun project.

My sister spent the night to babysit baby, while the hubby and I went out on a date night. I wanted a special breakfast treat for my sister the following day, so I made challah bread so I could make french toast for her.

I created a dough to make a medium size loaf, but the recipe can be easily adapted to make it smaller or larger.

Challah Bread

(recipe adapted from More Bread Machine Magic)

Ingredients:

• 1/2 cup water
• 3 eggs
• 4 1/2 tablespoons oil
• 2 tablespoons sugar
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 3 1/2 cups all purpose flour (I used half whole wheat pastry flour)
• 2 teaspoons red star brand active yeast

Directions (for bread machine):

1. Place dough ingredients in bread pan, select dough setting and press start
2. When the dough has risen long enough, the machine will beep. Turn off bread machine, remove bread pan, and turn out dough onto a lightly floured countertop or cutting board.
3. Grease large baking sheet.
4. Gently roll and stretch each piece into an 18-inch rope that is slightly thicker in the middle and thinner at the ends. Place the 3 ropes side by side about an inch apart on the prepared baking sheet. Starting from the center, loosely braid the ropes of dough first toward one end and then the other. Pinch to seal and tuck the ends under.
5. Cover and let rise at room temperature 45-60 minutes until almost doubled in size.
6. Preheat oven to 350F degrees during the last 10 minutes of the bread’s rising time.