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This challah bread looks great and it also tastes amazing.
This is a recipe for a simple challah bread with UK measurements using grams and millilitres with enriched dough ingredients.
The challah loaf is a traditional Jewish Sabbath bread and has a lot of history behind it.
This challah bread recipe is a little sweeter than regular bread as there is sugar to make up the dough. It compliments many different types of dishes and goes well with both sweet and savoury foods.
Contents
🍞 Challah Bread Ingredients
The ingredients in this challah bread recipe are quite simple.
Dough
- Flour
- Water
- Yeast
- Salt
- Sugar
Toppings
- Egg (beaten for a glaze)
- Mixed seeds
- Black onion seeds (nigella seeds)
- Sesame seeds
See the recipe card below for the measurements.
🔪 Instructions
- Step 1: Mix up the yeast, water, flour sugar and salt
- Step 2: Once loosely mixed, turn it out into a bowl and knead for around 10 minutes. Alternatively you can use a stand mixer and mix for 5 mins on fast and 5 minutes on slow. The dough should be stretchy and when pulled it shouldn't rip.
- Step 3: Once mixed, place back into the plastic mixing bowl (or use the stand mixer bowl) and cover the dough with cling film (or a shower cap). Leave it to rise for around an hour depending on ambient temperature of course. You are looking for it to double in size.
- Step 4: Once risen, split the dough into 3 equal size pieces. Weigh them out for accurate measurements. Roll each piece into equal length sausage shapes around 30cm long. Now you need to plait them into a braid, starting at one end. Tuck the ends in once complete. Lift this onto a sheet of baking paper.
- Step 5: Beat the egg and give the whole loaf an egg wash before covering in the seeds of your choice and leave to rise again for around 45 minutes to an hour to prove.
- Step 6: When ready, slide the paper onto a baking tray and cook in the oven for 25 - 30 minutes at 180°C / 350°F until beautifully golden.
🥨 Challah bread designs and ideas
The world of Challah provides endless entertainment when it comes to bread designs and ideas of how to make a loaf interesting. While the bread I have made here is a straight up 3 braid challah bread recipe, the possibilities are endless.
The bread can be made with this simple recipe but look fantastic due to the flexibility of the dough and how quickly it can rise. Using the instant yeast recipe gives to a pliable dough to make into various shapes including circular, diamond and even square.
Furthermore the various Challah bread toppings that you can use vary from the seeds mentioned into the recipe to sugar crystals, salt (like on a pretzel) to more adventurous like hundreds and thousands (for the doughnut style). Even a honey glaze on the top before serving works well too.
Challah Bread Rolls
Once you have the dough made, it is not essential that you make it into one loaf. Feel free to try making a few smaller challah bread rolls or a challah sandwich bun. Split out the dough into 80g to 100g pieces and form a bread roll. See my crusty white bread rolls post for more detailed guidance.
🥖 Getting the Challah Bread look
Taking your time with the look of the bread is the key to getting an even loaf. My tip here it to make sure you weigh out the separate portions of the dough once you split them into the three. This will give you an even amount of dough to work with making the plait much more equal.
The type of seeds to add into the dough are up to you. My preferred seed is a black onion seed, also known as Nigella Seeds. These have a distinct flavour to them and also make the break contrast nicely with the brown glossy crust.
📖 Variations
The bread can be used with swap outs and various adjustments to the ingredients, especially for the toppings. However for the main bread there is room to change out the type of flour that is used which will adjust the texture of the finished loaf. For example, adding some brown flour into the loaf will give the crumb some density.
Instead of using bread flour you could try 00 flour or French T55 flour. These will lighten the crumb and give more air in the loaf. Proving times will vary and timings may need experimentation (I never said it was all going to be easy!) You can even make challah in a bread machine by throwing the ingredients in and letting the mechanisms do the work.
Don't fear. If any bread fails to rise, cook it anyway and then either use the bread as croutons for soup or blitz in a blender and use as breadcrumbs for coating some chicken or similar.
You can leave most breads to rise overnight providing they are in the fridge. The refrigerator acts like a pause button on bread rises, so overnight will pause. Longer will allow it to rise but at a much slower rate.
There are options to store in a bread tin to keep the air from getting to the loaf. When serving, traditionally the bread would be out on the table and you can buy a specific embroidered challah bread cover to put over the bread until ready to serve.
Brioche has a milk and a much lighter fluffier texture to the bread and can to be a lot sweeter than Challah bread.
❄ Can you freeze Challah Bread?
You can freeze challah bread and it will last for months in the freezer (if you don't eat it all first of course). The tip is to slice the loaf on the day you make it once it has cooled down and then freeze it once it is sliced up. That way you can take out what you need from the freezer as and when required.
👨🏻🍳 Knead dough by hand or mixer?
This one is up to you. There are plenty of bread stand mixers out there and my guide on finding the best mixer to use covers a lot of different types. However just make sure not to over knead if doing so in a mixer. Don't set and forget, but check in every few minutes.
Kneading by hand is more energetic, but also more therapeutic (I think so anyway!) Don't forget to get a bread dough scraper to aid your mixing as this will help bring the dough together and avoid a sticky mess on your hands.
🌍 More World Breads To Try
The bread features in my breads of the world section which features lots of different types and I rate this one highly as while it looks a complicated recipe, the art is in the folding and braid. The actual recipe itself is really simple.
The Recipe
Simple Challah Bread
Equipment
Ingredients
Main dough
- 500 g Strong bread flour
- 230 g Water luke warm
- 50 g Sugar Caster sugar or cane sugar
- 8 g Yeast or 1.5 tsp
- 50 g Sunflower oil
- 8 g Salt
Topping
- 1 Egg For egg wash
- 10 g Sesame seeds optional
- 10 g Black onion seeds also known as nigella seeds - optional
- 10 g Mixed seeds optional
Instructions
Mix the ingredients
- Mix up the yeast, water, flour, sugar, salt and oil. Once loosely mixed, turn it out into a bowl and knead for around 10 minutes. Alternatively you can use a stand mixer and mix for 5 mins on fast and 5 minutes on slow. The dough should be stretchy and when pulled it shouldn't rip.500 g Strong bread flour, 230 g Water, 50 g Sugar, 8 g Yeast, 8 g Salt, 50 g Sunflower oil
First rise
- Cover the dough with cling film (or a shower cap) and leave it to rise. This will take around an hour but could be more or less depending on the ambient temperature of the room. Ideally the dough needs to rise to just under double in size.
Shaping and proving
- Once risen, split the dough into 3 equal size pieces. Weigh them out for accurate measurements. Then roll them each into equal length sausage shapes around 30cm long.
- Now you need to plait the three pieces into a braid, starting at one end (as you would if doing your child's hair). Tuck the ends in once complete, move to a piece of baking paper and leave to prove for a further 30 to 40 minutes.
Baking
- Beat the egg and give the whole loaf an egg wash before covering in the seeds of your choice and leave to rise again for around 45 minutes to an hour. When ready, slide the baking paper onto a preheated tray and cook in the oven for 25 - 30 minutes at 180°C/350℉ until beautifully golden. Leave it to cool on a rack before slicing.1 Egg, 10 g Sesame seeds, 10 g Black onion seeds, 10 g Mixed seeds
Notes
Nutrition
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