Hamsa Challah

Jenn's favorite part of the challah process is braiding the challah so we like to try out new shapes to keep her engaged.

Step 1: Roll out three strands. Jenn didn't really get what I was explain to her so one of the strands is way too long. Two of them should be about the same length and one should be a little more than half that size.

Step 2: Make hamsa shape, turning outside layer out.

Step 3: If necessary, adjust length of strands by cutting them with a knife.

Cook for about 25 minutes at 350 or until internal temperature is about 170.

Double Challah Knots

We loved the single challah knots so much that we decided to also include double challah knots.

However, making a chocolate knot probably wasn't the smartest choice as it kind of looks like dog poo.

Step 1: make a ribbon shape with the challah strand

Step 2: Tuck side 1 under side 2 and pull through back over side 2.

Step 3: Bring side 2 over side 1 and tuck under the roll.

Cook at 350 for 20-25 minutes or until internal temperature reaches around 170.

Dutch Apple Challah

Looking back on the challahs we have made this summer, most of them include either chocolate or peanut butter. However, I am always looking for ways to add fruit to our challahs while still fulfilling our sweet tooth. Our friends Stacy and Jordyn were supposed to come visit us today to skate and make some challah but something came up and they weren't able to come. Jordyn had said that she wanted to make a coffee cake challah so when we decided to use apples today we incorporated the essence of coffee cake by including the brown sugar and cinnamon. Jordyn is basically like a sister to us. We have known her family for years as we went to the same hebrew school for a year and then we skated on different lines of our past synchro team. Last summer when my family moved in the middle of the summer to Massachusetts I stayed with them for two weeks and thoroughly enjoyed our coffee ice cream late night snacks and soynut butter and banana sandwiches. Our families are even more intertwined now that our brother Jeffrey works for her father Jeff. They are even going to be doubles partners in a tennis tournament. But don't worry, Stacy is planning on making shirts to embarrass them as she cheers them on.

Recipe: (makes 2 loaves)
3/4 cup water
1 packet of active dry yeast (about 2 tsp)
1 tbsp white sugar
3 extra large eggs: 2 for dough, 1 for baste
5 tbsp light brown sugar
2 tbsp oil
3/4 tbsp honey
3/4 tsp vanilla
2 tsp cinnamon
3-4 cups flour
1 tsp salt
2 apples
additional cinnamon and brown sugar

Mix water, yeast and white sugar into a mixing bowl. Place in a warm place. This could be next to a window that gets sunlight, in the oven at 120 degrees or any other way to warm the mixture. Let stand for about 10 minutes or until the mixture starts to foam.

In a separate bowl mix 2 eggs, brown sugar, oil, honey, cinnamon and vanilla. Add to the yeast mixture after it has foamed.

Add 2 cups of flour, followed by the salt, and then the rest of the flour. Make sure you mix the flour as you are adding it. Continue to add flour until the dough is no longer sticking to you hands.

Knead the ingredients and form into a ball. Oil the large bowl and then roll the ball of dough in the oil. Place the ball back in the bowl and cover with plastic wrap. Place it in a warm place. Let the bowl sit for at least an hour and a half.

Dice apples into small pieces.

Remove dough from bowl and knead the dough to get out all the air. Roll out the strands and layer brown sugar, cinnamon and apples then close the strand.

We made a hamsa challah and a 3 strand challah but make any shape or braid you want.

After braiding the challah place on a buttered cookie sheet and allow to rise for at least 30 minutes in a warm place. Baste with egg wash (1 egg and 1/2 tbsp water) and place in oven. Bake for about 25-30 minutes at 350 or until internal temperature is around 185.

Nutella Challah

Today we decided to make a nutella and white chocolate chip challah. To say that I absolutely love nutella is an understatement! Every time I go on an international competition I literally live off of it. A typical breakfast in Europe is no where near as good as it is in the US. None of the breakfast food looks at all appetizing expect for the bread and croissant. For breakfast I typically eat between five pieces of bread to 13 croissant with nutella. I am so dependent on nutella that I pack my own jar in my suitcase just in case the hotel doesn't have any. When we went to Sweden for synchro worlds in April I was so sad to see that there was no nutella at breakfast that I immediately went back up to my room to grab my jar. I know that this may sound crazy but it's the truth.

All that nutella must have really paid off as her team won bronze at senior worlds:

Recipe: (makes 2 loaves)
3/4 cup water
1 packet of active dry yeast (about 2 tsp)
1 tbsp white sugar
3 extra large eggs: 2 for dough, 1 for baste
1/4 cup light brown sugar
1/4 cup oil
1.5 tbsp honey
1/2 tsp vanilla
3-4 cups flour
1 tsp salt
Nutella
White Chocolate Chips
Small bag of Hazelnuts

Mix water, yeast and white sugar into a mixing bowl. Place in a warm place. This could be next to a window that gets sunlight, in the oven at 120 degrees or any other way to warm the mixture. Let stand for about 10 minutes or until the mixture starts to foam.

In a separate bowl mix 2 eggs, brown sugar, 2 tbsp oil, honey and vanilla. Add to the yeast mixture after it has foamed.

Add 2 cups of flour, followed by the salt, and then the rest of the flour. Make sure you mix the flour as you are adding it. Continue to add flour until the dough is no longer sticking to you hands.

Knead the ingredients and form into a ball. Oil the large bowl and then roll the ball of dough in the oil. Place the ball back in the bowl and cover with plastic wrap. Place it in a warm place. Let the bowl sit for at least an hour and a half.

Remove from bowl and knead the dough to get out all the air. Roll out the strands. Spread a layer of nutella and then place white chocolate chips on top and close the strand.

 
We made single knots challah knots and a round challah.

After braiding the challah place on a buttered cookie sheet and allow challah to rise for at least 30 minutes in a warm place.

While the dough rises toast a small packet of hazel nuts for 10 minutes at 350. Baste with egg wash (1 egg and 1/2 tbsp water) and then sprinkle hazelnuts on baste.

Bake the knots for about 20 minutes and round challah for about 30 minutes at 350 or until internal temperature is around 170.

Buckeye Challah

Those of you who aren't from Ohio may be confused by why we are making a challah about a nut. Although a buckeye is a nut, it has also been made into a chocolate peanut butter candy.

As a student at Ohio State, I thought I would make a challah inspired by my school because tomorrow we leave for Columbus. Growing up in Greenwich, CT I had never heard of a buckeye before. The first time I visited campus I went on a tour with my mom. At the end of the day they gave us buckeyes in a wrapper. I was so excited to eat the mysterious candy in the bag. I told my mom about the buckeyes and she gave me the weirdest face and told me I shouldn't it eat. I was beyond confused and didn't understand why she didn't approve when the school was handing them out. Later that day in the airport I opened up the wrapper and found a delicious chocolate peanut butter treat. Only then did we put two and two together. My mom thought that the school was giving us buckeye nuts to eat but they were actually just giving us candy. In the end, my mom was mad that she didn't take one herself.

Recipe: (makes 2 loaves)
3/4 cup water
1 packet of active dry yeast (about 2 tsp)
4 tbsp white sugar
5 tbsp light brown sugar
1/2 cup cocoa powder
3 extra large eggs: 2 for dough, 1 for baste
2 tbsp oil
1/2 tbsp honey
4 cup flour
1 tsp salt
Reese's minis

Mix water, yeast and 1 tbsp white sugar into a mixing bowl. Place in a warm place. This could be next to a window that gets sunlight, in the oven at 120 degrees or any other way to warm the mixture. Let stand for about 10 minutes or until the mixture starts to foam.

I have never baked with cocoa power before so I didn't know what to expect. We ended up adding too much cocoa powder so I adjusted the amount in the recipe. We also wanted the challah to be sweet so we added lots of sugar.

In a separate bowl mix 2 eggs, 3 tbsp white sugar, brown sugar, 2 tbsp oil, honey and cocoa powder. Add to the yeast mixture after it has foamed.

Add 2 cups of flour, followed by the salt, and then the rest of the flour. Make sure you mix the flour as you are adding it. Continue to add flour until the dough is no longer sticking to you hands.
 
Knead the ingredients and form into a ball. Oil the large bowl and then roll the ball of dough in the oil. Place the ball back in the bowl and cover with plastic wrap. Place it in a warm place. Let the bowl sit for at least an hour and a half.

Remove from bowl and knead the dough to get out all the air. Roll out the strands and place reese's minis on the strands. Then fold close.

After braiding the challah, place on a buttered cookie sheet and allow to rise for about 30 minutes in a warm place. Baste with egg wash (1 egg and 1/2 tbsp water) and place in oven. Bake for about 30 minutes at 350 or until internal temperature is around 170.

PB&J Challah

It's peanut butter jelly time, peanut butter jelly time, peanut butter jelly time. So maybe I didn't use a baseball bat to make the challah this week but this song was definitely stuck in my head the whole time I was baking. This week's challah put a sweet twist on everyone's favorite sandwich. It is surprising to see that Lindsey would even want to make a peanut butter and jelly challah because when she was younger even the smell of peanut butter would make her run the other direction. Everyday our mom would make her a "just jelly" sandwich for lunch. There were a few times that my mom would use the same knife for the peanut butter, which she used in Jeffrey and my sandwich, and the jelly. Lindsey would somehow always smell or taste the small amount of peanut butter and come home complaining. It wasn't until she went to college that her distaste of peanut butter turned into an obsession.

Recipe: (makes 2 loaves)
3/4 cup water
1 packet of active dry yeast (about 2 tsp)
1 tbsp white sugar
3 extra large eggs: 2 for dough, 1 for baste
1/4 cup light brown sugar
1/4 cup oil
1.5 tbsp honey
1/2 tsp vanilla
3-4 cups flour
1 tsp salt
optional: chocolate and/or white chocolate chips

Mix water, yeast and white sugar into a mixing bowl. Place in a warm place. This could be next to a window that gets sunlight, in the oven at 120 degrees or any other way to warm the mixture. Let stand for about 10 minutes or until the mixture starts to foam.

In a separate bowl mix 2 eggs, brown sugar, 2 tbsp oil, honey and vanilla. Add to the yeast mixture after it has foamed.

Add 2 cups of flour, followed by the salt, and then the rest of the flour. Make sure you mix the flour as you are adding it. Continue to add flour until the dough is no longer sticking to you hands.

Knead the ingredients and form into a ball. Oil the large bowl and then roll the ball of dough in the oil. Place the ball back in the bowl and cover with plastic wrap. Place it in a warm place. Let the bowl sit for at least an hour and a half.

Remove from bowl and knead the dough to get out all the air. Roll out the strands. We chose to make 4 strands, 2 peanut butter, and 2 jelly. However, I recommend making an odd number of strands and having more jelly strands than peanut butter. The jelly is much thinner so you don't get as much flavor. Also, because it is wet it can be hard to close the dough causing the jelly to leak out as seen below.

We added semi sweet chocolate to the jelly and white chocolate chips to the peanut butter. The semi sweet was not very good in the challah but the white chocolate was amazing, especially because we used white chocolate peanut butter.

After braiding the challah, place on a buttered cookie sheet and allow to rise for about 30 minutes in a warm place. Baste with egg wash (1 egg and 1/2 tbsp water) and place in oven. Bake for 30 minutes at 350 or until internal temperature is around 170.

M&M Challah

Last Saturday we drove 5.5 hours in one day to visit our brother in New York. It had been almost 7 months since I had last seen him. He recently graduated from college and started working in New York, making it hard for him to come to Massachusetts and visit us. We asked him what kind of challah he wanted us to make for him and the only thing he said was M&Ms. We weren't sure how that would turn out because we thought the colors of the M&Ms might run. Some of the colors did run but it actually created a cool swirl effect to the inside of the challah. We used regular M&Ms but I swear there used to be baking M&Ms but we couldn't find them in the 2 super markets we went to. We spent the day "park hopping" because we brought the dog with us and did not want to leave him in the car. And of course we couldn't go down to New York and not eat pizza and gelato at Sal's. We also had to pick up a seven layer cake from Boiano Bakery with "we miss you" on it, not referring to our brother but to the cake, seriously we have missed this cake.

Can you find Jeffrey?

Also check out the 2nd M&M challah!

Recipe: (makes 2 loaves)
3/4 cup water
1 packet of active dry yeast (about 2 tsp)
1 tbsp white sugar
3 extra large eggs: 2 for dough, 1 for baste
1/4 cup light brown sugar
1/4 cup oil
1.5 tbsp honey
1 tsp vanilla
3-4 cups flour
1 tsp salt
M&Ms
Hot Fudge

Mix water, yeast and white sugar into a mixing bowl. Place in a warm place. We placed the bowl in the oven at 115 degrees, but you could also place it in the oven with the oven light on. Let stand for about 10 minutes or until the mixture starts to foam.

 

Mix 2 eggs, brown sugar, oil, honey and vanilla in a separate bowl. Add to the yeast mixture after it has foamed mix.

Add 2 cups of flour, followed by the salt, and then the rest of the flour. Make sure you mix the flour as you are adding it. Continue to add flour until the dough is no longer sticking to you hands.

Knead the ingredients and form into a ball. Place the ball back in the bowl and cover with plastic wrap. Place it in a warm place, either in the oven at 115 degrees or with the light on. Let the bowl sit for an hour. After an hour knead the ingredients, place dough back in the bowl, cover with plastic wrap, and put back in a warm place for 30-60 minutes.

Remove from bowl and knead the dough once more to get out all the air. Start by adding the M&Ms and roll out the strands. Then scoop out the hot fudge and fold the dough over to close. We definitely added too much chocolate so it got very messy.

After braiding the challah place on a buttered cookie sheet and allow to rise for about 30 minutes in a warm place. Baste with egg wash (1 egg and 1/2 tbsp water) and place in oven. Bake for 30 minutes at 350 or until internal temperature is around 170 degrees.

We added more M&Ms after it baked and placed them in the melted chocolate.

Bailey's Irish Cream Challah

We have been talking about making a Bailey's Irish Cream challah for a long time. Not because we are big fans of the drink, but rather because our dog is named after the drink. Bailey is a huge part of our family. Recently we bought a car and we had to make sure that it would be accommodating for our dog. The first thing we would ask when entering a car dealership was whether the back windows would go down all the way. Our dog likes to put his head out the window and it is more comfortable for him when he can rest his head. Yes everyone thought we were crazy, and this really did limit the cars we could buy. Spoiled right? Literally this dog is practically human, he goes to play group, smiles, speaks, and enjoys eating Oreos. Well Bailey's birthday was last month so we wanted to make something special for his 7th birthday.

Bailey at play group on his birthday:

This recipe was the hardest to come up with because we were using the Bailey's as flavoring. We originally started by adding the yeast to the Bailey's, instead of adding it to water as usual, but it never activated. I'm not sure if this was because of something that was in the Bailey's or because it was a bad package of yeast. As a result we had to add the yeast to water and then add the Bailey's later. We also started experimenting with the yeast. Yeast activates best in a warm environment. The lowest temperature our oven can be set to is 170 degrees, which would be too hot for the dough. Instead we set the oven to 170 and when it reached 115 we turned it off. When you turn off the oven add the dough and let it sit. The warmer environment caused the dough to become even bigger when sitting.

Recipe: (makes 2 loaves)
1/4 cup water
1 packet of active dry yeast (about 2 tsp)
1/2 tsp white sugar
1/4 cup Bailey's Irish Cream
3 extra large eggs: 2 for dough, 1 for baste
1/4 cup light brown sugar
2 tbsp oil
1/2 tbsp honey
3 1/4 cup flour
1 tsp salt
heath milk chocolate toffee bits
white chocolate chips
caramel

Pour the water into a large mixing bowl. Add yeast and the white sugar. Place the mixture in a warm place. We placed the bowl in the oven at 115 degrees, but you could also place it in the oven with the oven light on. Let stand for about 10 minutes or until the mixture starts to foam.

Mix Bailey's, 2 eggs, brown sugar, oil, and honey in a separate bowl. Add to the yeast mixture after it has foamed and then mix thoroughly.

Add 2 cups of flour, followed by the salt, and then the rest of the flour. Make sure you mix the flour as you are adding it. Continue to add flour until the dough is no longer sticking to you hands.

Knead the ingredients and form into a ball. Place the ball back in the bowl and cover with plastic wrap. Place it in a warm place, either in the oven at 115 degrees or with the light on. Let the bowl sit for an hour. After an hour knead the ingredients, place dough back in the bowl, cover with plastic wrap, and put back in a warm place for 30-60 minutes.

Dough rising in Oven

Remove from bowl and knead the dough again to get the air bubbles out. We decided to make a round challah and knots but you can do any challah shape. Roll out your strands and add a layer of caramel, make sure not to add too much though because it will become too hard to close if the caramel oozes out. Then sprinkle the heath and chips and fold to close.

After braiding the challah place it on a buttered cookie sheet and allow it to rise for about 30 minutes. Then baste with egg wash (1 egg, 1/2 tbsp water and some brown sugar). We also sprinkled some brown sugar on top of the baste.

The knots and braids take about 25 minutes to cook and the round challah takes 40-60 minutes (depending on the size) at 350. The challah is done cooking when the internal temperature is 170 degrees or when the inside is no longer doughy. If the top of your challah reaches your desired color but the inside is not cooked enough yet, place foil over the challah in the oven.

Look how cute, a dog paw!

YUM YUM YUM! There is so much stuff to love inside this challah!