Emily's Holiday Challah-Made With Love

When my younger son, Nick, and my daughter-in-law, Emily, were students dating at FSU, Emily won Nick’s heart with her homemade holiday challah. She won my heart, too. Emily’s recipe does not include raisins, a usual Rosh Hashanah standard.

I should tell you that, in general, I am not a big fan of raisins. I think they are very tricky and sneaky and quite deceptive, as they try to impersonate chocolate chips. You bite into a cookie expecting delectable, mood lifting chocolate, and what do you get? –disappointment-raisins! But, that’s another story.

If you insist on being traditional and want to add raisins, here’s how to do it: Place them all around the flat piece of rolled out dough and then roll it up. When you go to shape the dough, the raisins will be hidden inside.

My sister, Helane, reminded me that our mother's advice on raisins was to rinse them with boiling water before eating. Back in the ghetto in Poland, it was to kill any possible bugs, she said. (Who knew?; they ate raisins in the ghetto?) Helane says professional bakers say it plumps them up - hydrates them - so that they don't leach moisture out of the dough, which would lead to dry pastry.

Well, that’s more than enough about raisins. Here’s Emily’s Holiday Challah recipe, made with love.

Enjoy,

Marlene

Ingredients
3/4 cup warm water (about 110-115 degrees F)
1 package active dry yeast
1 tbl. sugar
1 tsp. salt
1 tbl. oil
1 egg
3 cups flour
Egg glaze:

1 egg yolk
2 tbl. water

Directions
Mix warm water, yeast, sugar, oil, salt, egg and 2 cups of flour in a large mixing bowl. Beat well with a wooden spoon.

Add a little flour to your hands and a flat surface and knead for about 5 minutes, adding flour as necessary. The dough should be smooth.

Place the dough into a greased bowl and turn it over. Cover and place in a warm place to rise.
When the dough has doubled in size, press it down and cut into 4 sections.
Take your risen dough strands and roll them out gently as long as possible. Do this with four pieces of dough until they are all about the same length. Lay the pieces out in front of you, tic-tac-toe style.

Each strand should be placed in opposite directions; one side is over/under, the next row is then under/over. There should now be 2 sets of 2 strands each coming out from the four sides of the woven middle, one under and one over in each set.

From each set, pick up the one that was "under" and pull it over its partner, thereby placing each of these "unders" over their corresponding partner, in a clockwise rotation. Practically speaking, this means that the left piece of each set will be placed over the right piece of each set.

When this rotation is done, work in the opposite direction, clockwise. What was formerly the right piece, will now go over the left piece in the counter clockwise direction; the pieces are not yet next to each other as they are still apart from the first rotation; pull them close to each other and bring the right piece, i.e. the one you did not touch in the first rotation, over the left piece of the neighboring strand.

After this second rotation is done, do a third one, now going back in the other direction. Do one more opposite rotation if you have enough dough left.

To finish, pinch each set of two ends together firmly, then bring all four sets together towards the center.

Now comes the really fun part: carefully flip over your challah and look! You now have a beautiful, woven, round challah.

Leave to rise on a large baking tray that has been lined with parchment baking paper. Cover the challah loosely while rising. After 20 minutes of rising, turn on your oven to preheat at 400 F/200 C, as most ovens take 20 minutes to reach full temperature.

After the full 40 minutes of rising time, glaze your challah with egg glaze (mix the egg yolk with the 2 tbl. of water) and place them directly into the hot oven, for optimum baking results. Bake for 35-40 minutes until the top and bottom are golden.