Comments on: best challah (egg bread)

By: Marissa

Marissa — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 05:05:55 +0000

Just made this as my first attempt at making bread. It came out of the oven 5 minutes ago and I’m already eating a slice! It’s beautiful and delicious! I was shocked it was such a simple process! I actually substituted 2 cups of AP flour for whole wheat flour and I’m in love!

By: Paige

Paige — Sun, 05 Feb 2012 03:56:54 +0000

I love this recipe for Challah! I just blogged about my baking experience using it: http://roguedoe.wordpress.com/2012/02/04/the-shiksa-bakes-challah/

Thank you for posting it!

By: Kathy in St. Louis

Kathy in St. Louis — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 12:18:59 +0000

Made this last night, shaped into 30 rolls, for my co-workers. They’re delicious and subtle, and I don’t know how anyone wouldn’t like them. I’ll have to make another batch so that my sweetheart can have some, and so that we can make french toast from the leftovers. Thanks, Deb.

By: deb

deb — Sun, 29 Jan 2012 14:54:29 +0000

It really needs to be defrosted until it’s not frozen or it’s likely to brown and bake on the outside but still remain cold/raw in the center in the oven. That said, it may not take much more than an hour for yours to defrost, depending on the temperature of your kitchen and thickness of the bread.

By: miamwol

miamwol — Sun, 29 Jan 2012 03:27:25 +0000

I’d love to be able to freeze these, and then bake them. Is there any way that it can be defrosted for only an hour or so?

By: Jen

Jen — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 05:40:34 +0000

This recipe is wonderful for new bread bakers, and I made it for the second time this weekend with my young sons. I find the braid easy to follow, but agree that having someone else to read it would help or even if that part of the recipe were in numbered bullet format that would be cool (thanks for the weights! I love using my kitchen scale on this!). Turned out beautifully the first time — I baked everything and froze one of two baked loaves (is this a bad thing? I typically only freeze sandwich bread), but this time I froze one loaf before the last rising. Hopefully that will work out! However, the one I baked this time did rise too long it seems before I got it in the oven and fell a bit flat when baked…not sure why, but I will be more careful next time….perhaps I was getting overconfident!

By: Christine

Christine — Fri, 13 Jan 2012 22:13:51 +0000

This is a great recipe. I just recommend watching how brown the bread gets, because when I used a convection oven at 375 degrees, it got a tad bit more brown than I would have like (not like the picture). I had to tent the bread with some tin foil so it didn’t brown anymore.
But other than that, the flavor is great!

By: Anna

Anna — Fri, 13 Jan 2012 15:18:58 +0000

I just made this for the second time yesterday. The first time I halved the recipe since it was a test run and found that a little easier to work with. I probably could’ve benefited from a kitchen scale when I made the full recipe. I wasn’t too good at estimating and ended up with one loaf significantly larger than the other. I haven’t tasted it, so hopefully one isn’t more dried out. I also accidentally used double the amount of oil in the first round and it came out fine, so it’s pretty forgiving in that respect.

Thanks for helping this Catholic baptized, Baptist raised, Quaker educated girl make her friend’s Jewish mother proud!

By: Jolene

Jolene — Fri, 13 Jan 2012 13:11:35 +0000

Thank you for making all your recipes so first-time-baker/cook friendly. I LOVE your blog and know that whatever I attempt to make from it will never turn out bad. I just finished baking this challah (I’m actually eating challah for the first time in my life) and it’s simply beautiful, in taste and looks!
PS: I cant wait for your book to come out!!

By: Jessica

Jessica — Sun, 01 Jan 2012 16:34:43 +0000

Thank you! Made it for the first time yesterday–fantastic recipe and results–the braiding was a little tricky; next time I will roll the strands skinnier and longer and braid tighter at the start–my loaf had a bit of a wedge shape, wider at the start and narrower at the end. But otherwise amazingly impressive and beautiful and delicious.