If there’s one thing the team has learnt during five years of PJ Library in the UK, it’s how much our families love a good child-friendly recipe!
We have collaborated with Challah Mummy many times in the past, she has created amazing show stoppers for us including a challah bee for Rosh Hashanah and even a Mount Sinai challah for Shavuot. So as we approached our birthday, there was absolutely no doubt in our minds as to who would help us celebrate. Thank you Challah Mummy!
Ingredients:
- 1 - 1.5 kilos of plain flour (approx.)
- 1½ cups of lukewarm water
- 40g fresh yeast (or 1 tablespoon active dried yeast)
- 4 tablespoons caster sugar (plus one more teaspoon to mix in with the yeast)
- 2 eggs (plus one more egg for the egg wash)
- 1 tablespoon of salt
- ¼ cup of sunflower oil
- Seeds to decorate
- Baking paper
- Rolling pin
Preparation:
Pour the lukewarm water into a big mixing bowl, add the extra teaspoon of caster sugar and then carefully dissolve the fresh yeast into the water. Once bubbles start to appear on the surface of the water, pour in about a third of the flour, followed by the 2 eggs, the rest of the caster sugar, the salt and the oil. Get your hands into the dough and combine the mixture, adding flour little by little as you go, until you get a big ball of dough. You will know when the dough is ready to knead because it shouldn’t stick to your hands any more. You may not need all the flour to get to this point so just use what your own dough mixture needs.
Sprinkle a clean work surface with flour, tip your dough out onto it and knead for 5-10 minutes, adding a bit of flour if it gets too sticky again. Drizzle a little bit of leftover sunflower oil around the big mixing bowl, place the ball of kneaded dough back inside and cover with cling film. Leave the dough to rise for about 1 ½ hours or until it has doubled in size.
Once the dough has risen, give it a little punch to knock the air back out of it. Place it back on the floured work surface and knead it a little bit, with a bit of flour if needed, so that it’s ready to shape. Roll the dough out thin and flat with a rolling pin before cutting it into long, thin strips. Plait the strips three at a time and then wind them round into a number 5 shape on a piece of baking paper.
Once you are happy with the shape, cover the challah dough with a clean tea towel or cling film and let it rise again for half an hour to one hour. Towards the end of this time, pre-heat your oven to 180 degrees and prepare the egg wash. Spread the egg wash generously over the challah with a pastry brush and decorate with assorted seeds.
Bake the challah for 25- 30 minutes at the bottom of the oven. You may need to cover the challah in foil at around 20 minutes if it’s getting a bit too brown and crispy!
About Allegra
Hi! I'm Allegra, a former Corporate Tax Lawyer who walked away from my legal career to be a hands-on Mummy and ended up becoming a TV Chef and Expert Challah Bread Baker known as the Challah Mummy! I have appeared on daytime and cookery TV shows, including ITV's This Morning, Good Morning Britain and James Martin's Saturday Morning, to demonstrate how to make my decorative Challah Bread which often filled with fruit and vegetables grown with my children in our Micro Urban Garden. I teach "Confidence Through Cooking" Classes to children in mainstream and special educational needs primary schools and run Challah Braiding Workshops for adults and children from my home in NW London. Please check out @challahmummy on Instagram or www.challahmummy.co.uk.
February 27, 2020