#recipe reference

Makes 2 large Challah loaves

2 1/2 cups warm water (110°F/45°C)

1 tablespoon active dry yeast

2 cup honey

4 tablespoons vegetable oil

3 eggs + 1 egg yolk

1 tablespoon salt

8 cups unbleached flour (I use bread flour, but you can use AP)

1 tablespoon poppy seeds (optional) (I never use this)

melted butter (optional) (I do this)

In a large bowl, sprinkle yeast over barely warm water. Beat in honey, oil, 2 eggs + 1 egg yolk, and salt. Add the flour one cup at a time, beating after each addition, graduating to kneading with hands as dough thickens. Knead until smooth and elastic and no longer sticky, adding flour as needed. Cover with a damp clean cloth and let rise for 1 1/2 hours or until dough has doubled in bulk. (To help with this process, you can set the dough on the stove top - still covered - and turn your oven on around 120°F. You can also let it rise outside if it is very hot out and you can keep insects away. ) Keep in mind, this dough is going to get VERY big.

Punch down the risen dough and turn out onto floured board. Divide in half and knead each half for five minutes or so, adding flour as needed to keep from getting sticky. Divide each half into sixths and roll into long snake about 1 1/2 inches in diameter. Pinch the ends of the six snakes together firmly and watch this video to figure out how to braid with six strands. Either leave as braid or form into a round braided loaf by bringing ends together, curving braid into a circle, pinch ends together. Grease two baking trays and place finished braid or round on each. Cover with towel and let rise about one hour. (You can do the above process again if you want)

Preheat oven to 375°F (190°C).

Beat the remaining egg and brush a generous amount over each braid. Sprinkle with poppy seeds if desired.

Bake at 375°F (190°C) for about 20-25 minutes. Bread should have a nice hollow sound when thumped on the bottom. Cool on a rack for at least one hour before slicing.

Brush melted butter over the challah loaves to give them a shiny appearance.

Notes: I saved the egg white from the separated egg yolk to add to the egg I used for the egg wash. If you are afraid your loaves are becoming too brown on top and cook time hasn't completed, you can put aluminum foil on them half way through cooking to help prevent it. The original recipe called for 40 minutes of cook time, but mine only needed 20-25 minutes. Your oven may be different, so watch your bread.

This is beautiful Challah bread, lightly sweet, slightly dense and just the right amount of eggy-ness. I could not keep my kids away from it. I'm very proud of how this came out and have made it to take to friends.

Edit: If you would like to make this into a dessert Challah, when you have made the dough ropes, lightly brush with melted butter and then roll the ropes in cinnamon sugar. Then continue on with the rest of the directions but do not brush with butter after it comes out of the oven.

For those that do not know: if you brush the bread with butter after it comes out of the oven and is still hot, it will look pretty. It doesn't really serve any other function than that. =) (Unless you really like butter.)

You can also make this into a Challah fit for someone with Diabetes by substituting the honey with Sucralose (aka Splenda) 1:1 (1 cup honey = 1 cup Splenda)

If you do not know how to braid 6 strand Challah, watch this tutorial: https://goo.gl/z5e49w (This video is how I learned.)

They were good! Make more in the future. It says six, but used a normal size tray and ended up with ~20

Ooh :o recipe?

uhhh,,, my idea of cooking is throwing things into a pot and hoping for the best but i’ll try to explain it in a way were it might be replicateable

I may have accidentally created the bastard offspring of brownies and cookies and upon reflection there isn’t really a good way to mash those two words together so I’ll just go with flat brownie discs of deliciousness because that is basically what they are and it is magical

I don’t entirely remember what I did to create this deliciousness but I’ll attempt to retrace my steps for anyone who’s interested (fair warning, it’s not so much a recipe as a journey of discovering how many things could be changed in an existing recipe without ruining everything so it’s not exactly concise but I did my best)

So I was talking to my mom and we got into this discussion about coffee/tea and she told me about this weird coffee that my grandma swore was the best ever but my mom was way too grossed out to try.

My grandma was a full blooded Finn so she was really really REALLY into coffee. Apparently there's this traditional recipe for Egg Cleared Coffee, where you smash an egg (shell and all) in a bunch of coffee grounds and steep the grounds and brew the coffee with the egg ground mixture.