So i'm not Jewish, nor do I claim to know a lot about Jewish food culture, the one thing I do know is that so many Jewish celebrations revolve around food which is awesome. Challah is eaten every Friday night for Shabbat. It's a delicious, slightly sweet bread, a little like brioche however it contains no butter. The only downside to challah is that it goes stale fairly quickly, which doesn't matter too much because it makes fabulous french toast!
Challah has a characteristic braid, which can be done with either 3, 4 or 6 strands. Unfortunately as my challah was rising, the braid started to disappear :( It was really fun braiding dough though. What I found was that it was quite difficult to stretch the dough into long strands so I had to do it in stages, letting the strands rest in between - just like making pretzels. Nonetheless I am quite pleased with my first attempt and it tastes mighty fine however I don't think i'll put Glick's out of business just yet!
The recipe I used can be found at Smitten Kitchen however there was a great Daring Baker's challenge in June featuring Challah which has lots of tips and photos.
I'm off to China tomorrow so hopefully i'll be able to post some China tales soon!
Sarah xx
