Wow your dinner guests this Rosh Hashanah with an impressive 3D apple challah! Challah Mummy created this very special challah especially for PJ families. Shana tova!
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 yolk for the egg wash)
1 tablespoon of salt
¼ cup of sunflower oil
Red and green food colouring
Rolling pin
Method
First, 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.
Divide the dough into 2 portions, one bigger and one smaller, and add a few drops of red food colouring to the bigger portion and a few drops of green food colouring to the smaller portion. Knead the dough to spread the colour evenly through the dough. Drizzle a little bit of leftover sunflower oil around 2 bowls, place each ball of kneaded dough in a bowl and cover with cling film. Leave to rise for about 1 ½ hours or until it has doubled in size.
Once the dough has risen, roll the red dough out long, thin and flat with a rolling pin. Cut long thin strips of dough and plait them together three at a time. Wind the red plaits around a big ball of foil which has been shaped to look like an apple. Roll the green dough out thin and flat and cut out leaves. Cover the apple and leaves with a clean tea towel or cling film and let them 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 by adding red food colouring so some and green food colouring to the rest. Spread the red egg wash generously over the apple challah with a pastry brush and the green egg wash over the leaves. Bake the apple challah for 30 minutes at the bottom of the oven. You may need to cover the leaves in foil at around 15 minutes if they are getting a bit too brown and crispy! Add the leaves to the top of the apple challah and top with a stalk (one from a pepper works very well!).
About the Challah Mummy
Hi! I’m Allegra and I’m the Challah Mummy! Each week in my Challah Mummy Kitchen, my two children suggest a new, fun shape and we make it out of challah. We have made fire engine challah, red London bus challah, green turtle challah, blossom tree challah and even helicopter challah. Check out our Challah designs at @challahmummy on Instagram, challahmummy.wordpress.com or the Challah Mummy Facebook Page. I also run Challah Mummy Braiding Workshops from my home in North West London to teach children and adults how to make beautiful and unusual designs out of Challah. To book your space or find out more, please email challahmummy@gmail.com.
August 26, 2019