Challah

Ingredients

• 1 kg Bakers' flour
• 550 ml Warm water
• 100 g Caster sugar
• 90 ml Neutral oil
• 14 g Dried yeast
• 18 g Salt
• 1 Egg, for glazing
• Seed blend for the top

  Otherwise: sesame and poppy seeds

Method

1. 01Whisk the yeast and a spoonful of the sugar into the warm water. Leave ten minutes until it foams — if it doesn't, the yeast is dead and nothing later will fix it.
2. 02Mix the flour, remaining sugar and salt. Add the yeast mixture and the oil, and bring together into a shaggy dough.
3. 03Knead ten minutes by hand or six in a mixer, until it pulls away from the bowl and springs back when pressed.
4. 04Cover and prove ninety minutes, until roughly doubled.
5. 05This recipe uses 1 kg of flour, below the amount for separating challah with a blessing. If you increase the batch, check the required amount with your rabbi.
6. 06Knock back, divide, and plait. Six strands if you can; three is not a failure.
7. 07Second prove, forty-five minutes, until puffy and slow to spring back.
8. 08Glaze with beaten egg, scatter the seeds, and bake at 180°C for 28–32 minutes until deep brown and hollow underneath.