Challah bread aka. egg bread

I'm not Jewish so let's not pretend this is best challah bread recipe ever. I do believe however, there are so much similarities and cross-over in world cuisine. Delicious flavors are universal and sometimes can be found in different cultural cooking, but all spawned from different origins independently (super fascinating!). I am Chinese, and in Chinese bakeries, you can almost always find some sort of "egg bread". It's often a sweet, eggy, light yellow, soft, fluffy, highly satisfying treat, bonus if you get the ones with some coconut shredding. Challah or egg bread? Similar enough? I think so! Who doesn't love some sweet and beautiful Challah/egg bread?

I discovered Challah bread a number of years ago, it is very much like the beloved egg bread: sweet, eggy and fluffy. So now when I needed to make French toasts, or just regular toast with butter - challahs have been a reliable go-to. But making it? Nah I have only jumped on the baking train very recently. So obviously, never before considered this. But now! thanks to COVID boredom, I am actually giving this a go today. Fam, stay tuned because the freaking challah bread was so glorious! 

What you need:

- 2 and 2/3 cup flour

- 1 tsp salt

- 1 tsp yeast

- 3 tbsp honey

- 1 tbsp oil

- 1 egg

- 1 cup warm water (use WARM water! not hot, not cold, warm so you don't kill the yeast)

Recipe:

- sprinkle yeast in warm water, beat in honey, egg, and salt.

- add flour a bit at a time and mix well. until you can knead the dough to a ball. cover with a dampened dish towel and let it rise for an hour. I like covering the dough (in mixing bowl) with just saran wrap. The dish towel can stick to the dough which is messier to clean up. Our goal is simply the warm temperature, and to trap the moisture. Saran wrap helps to achieve the same result.

- roll the dough out (it should have doubled in size now), cut it in 3 equal-ish portions. Roll 3 long strands of dough (about inch diameter) logs.

- pinch the 3 logs at one end and braid them until the 3 longs meet at the other end, pinch them together again. Cover with moistened towel and let it rise for an hour again.

- oil the pan, place the braids in the pan. Brush egg wash on top and sprinkle with sesame seeds. 

- bake 35-40 min at 375F until golden.

- slice and serve! 

Original recipe inspiration: https://www.allrecipes.com/recipe/6760/challah-i/

Notes and verdict:

- while this recipe is great for a beginning challah maker like me, there are a few things I'd change.

- It needs to be more fluffy, aka air pockets. while my challah turned out great! I mean just look at the thing it's so pretty! it wasn't risen as much as I thought it would. I perhaps would up the yeast and water content next time a bit so it will be more fluffy and soft.

- it needs to be sweeter. I think I'll opt for more honey next time. The Challah barely had any sweetness to it this time.

- Egg wash in the end was a bit annoying.. I cracked a whole other egg for it and had no use for the remainder (90%) of the egg that's left. Next time, I'll keep a big of the egg (initially added into the batter) aside so I don't have to crack another egg just to brush on top.

- Instead of water, perhaps I'll use warm almond/cashew/oat/soy milk instead next time. I feel that will give the bread more creaminess which translates to yumminess.. probably?

- Overall though, this was a huge success! just looking at the bread makes me happy.