Challah

Sorry for the crappy quality of this picture--I've misplace my camera so it was taken on a cellphone. I just somehow feel like I'm being a bad blogger if I don't include images.

Anyway, last time my sister visited, I stole the recipe for this particular challah off her iPod. I'd never had it before but she said it was good and that her boyfriend's mother loved it when she made it for her. So now that I have a new oven, which makes baking bread much more feasible, I figured I'd try it out.

I went to a Jewish summer camp for a couple years when I was a teenager and on Fridays we'd always have to do these preparing-for-Shabbat chores. One of these was braiding the Challah for baking--which I didn't do all that well on the pictured loaf but was much more successful at on the mostly eaten loaf--but I'd never actually made the dough. I was very relieved then, to find that it wasn't at all difficult.

The thing that always throws me off when I make bread--which is admittedly rare--is getting the right liquid to flour ratio. But this recipe only uses 1/4 cup of water so it's fairly hard to mess up. I ran out of regular flour so I mixed in some whole wheat flour and it came out just fine. Today I picked up some chicken soup from Little Veselka to go with it.

And if nothing else, challah always looks delicious.