The Best Challah Recipe (2024)

FAQs

What kind of flour is best for challah bread? ›

Myrna's original recipe calls for all-purpose flour, and you can substitute that here. But I find bread flour gives the challah a nice chew without making it tough, and also helps the braided loaf maintain its shape after baking.

In place of sugar, honey or maple syrup provide sweetness and moisture. Olive oil imparts a flavorful, herbaceous note to the bread — you can use a neutral oil, too, but the flavor of the former is truly something special. The focus on egg yolks, rather than eggs, ensures a tender, chewy crumb.

Challah needs to fully proof before baking. That means that it should respond to a light press of the fingertips by very slowly rebounding. It could also be that your dough is too dense, or that you're not shaping it well.

Be careful not to over proof your loaves; if they proof too much, the air bubbles get too big, causing them to pop and then deflate in the oven.

A crucial mistake that is often made is not passing the flour through a sieve before using it. If you don't sift the flour, the result is bread that is too dense and heavy. Sifting is what gives challah its soft, airy texture.

Once it looks like a smooth and elastic dough, STOP adding flour; too much flour will dry out the dough! Add a bit more OIL instead and your dough will be great!

The best baking temperature for *most* challahs is about 190°C / 365-375°F.

Type of flour: A good-quality bread flour is ideal for strong dough. I personally use this one. If you don't have bread flour, you can use all-purpose flour (do not use a “self-rising” version).

Knead on medium-low speed until you have a sticky dough that clings to the bottom of the bowl, 5 to 7 minutes. The dough may seem too wet but have faith—it's supposed to be. Dust your hands generously with flour, then scrape the sticky, elastic dough out onto a lightly floured work surface.

When dough has doubled, punch it down and turn it over in your bowl. At this point, you can either let it rise again on the counter or let it rise slowly in the fridge overnight. I ALWAYS do one rise overnight in the fridge, no matter what kind of bread I'm baking.

What ingredient makes bread more fluffy? ›

Add Sugar

Adding sugar weakens the gluten structure, absorbs water, and eventually makes the bread lighter and softer. As a result, sugar improves the bread's taste, structure and texture. Yeast also eats up sugar to produce carbon dioxide, which raises the dough and makes bread fluffy.

If the area is too warm, bread will rise too fast and begin cooking before the yeast has finished acting. This will impart a "yeasty" taste to the dough that will be transferred to the finished baked loaf. Using old ingredients (rancid nuts, "old" shortening) will cause yeast breads to taste old or have an "off" taste.

When can I refrigerate my dough? Most bread recipes have two rises, a first rise (also called bulk fermentation), and a second or final rise. You can chill your dough during either the first or second rise.

Do all of your other baked items bake okay and the problem is only your challahs? If this is what's happening, it could be that your challahs have simply not been inside the oven long enough. If so, increase your baking time by another 5 minutes for your challahs.

No special flour required to make the perfect loaf. Some challah recipes call for bread flour, but I use all-purpose flour and it works perfectly every time.

No. Self-raising flour is effectively plain (all-purpose) flour that comes pre-mixed with baking powder. Strong (bread) flour is flour that contains more gluten than plain (all-purpose) flour. This makes it particularly suitable for making bread, which depends on developing gluten chains within the dough.

You can use all-purpose flour as a 1:1 substitute for bread flour and vice-versa. For example, for 1 cup of bread flour, you can use 1 cup of all-purpose flour.

All-purpose flour is best used for: cookies, muffins, bread, pie crusts, pancakes, biscuits, pizza dough, and pasta.