Apple Honey Challah

A few weeks ago I made this recipe for Apple Honey Challah from Two Blue Lemons. For those who don't know, challah is a Jewish egg bread. It is generally served at shabbat dinner (Friday night). In my opinion, they key to a good challah is the texture: the dough should be stringy, chewy, and slightly moist. It can be made savory with sesame or poppy seeds, or sweet (my preference) with a bit of honey or sugar. A sweet, round, "turban" loaf is traditional for Rosh Hashanah. Challah is close to a brioche, but in my opinion, much easier to make and more eggy than buttery. If you're following kosher you want to be careful with the fat (use oil for fleisch and butter for parve or vegetarian meals).

Dough rising

The dough is a bit wet - i had to add more flour as I kneaded until it felt right - and I took forever to rise. I kept poking it, telling L I ruined it, and then letting it rise some more. So give this one long rises (at least 2 hours). I also found that using olive oil on my hands helped with the kneading process and kept me from adding too much flour. It's a handful once you add the apples, but the end result is amazing. Parchment paper in a springform pan made baking a cinch. I could have eaten the entire loaf all by myself. I've hear challah is fantastic as french toast, but honestly, I love the regular loaf so much that it never lasts long enough to get stale.

Finished loaf

As the story goes you are not supposed to a knife to challah, because doing so is doing violence to the bread, but are supposed to tear it. I decided to go for slices b/c if I didn't I'd have torn off half the loaf. To make an easily tearable challah, go for a 5 strand braid, or divid the dough into smaller dough balls and stick them together in a loaf pan.