The Bakery · Bread
Challah
- Intermediate
- 3 h 30 m
- roughly 1 of 4 for cost
- Vegetarian
Leads with a sweet edge rounding the corners, toasted, nutty warmth throughout.
Ingredients
- 500g bread flour; 7g yeast; 80g sugar or honey
- 2 eggs + 2 yolks (whites reserved for the wash); 180ml warm water
- 80ml oil; 10g salt
- Sesame or poppy seeds
- A six-strand ambition or a three-strand peace
The skills inside
Proofing: the rise before the ovenEgg wash & the baker’s shine
Allergen screen
Found: gluten · egg · sesame
Screened for: gluten, dairy, egg, nuts, peanuts, fish, shellfish, molluscs, soy, sesame, celery, mustard, lupin, alcohol. Not screened: sulphites.
Screened by keyword from the ingredient list, not reviewed by a person; check every label for what the list cannot show.
Method
- Rich, smooth dough; knead well; rise 1.5 h. 300 min
- Divide into strands; roll long ropes, fatter in the middle, tapered at the ends.
- Braid: three strands for confidence, six for glory (over two, under one, repeat); tuck the ends under.
- Proof 45 min; egg wash TWICE (once now, once in 20 min, the double coat is the lacquer); seeds; bake 180°C, 30–35 min to deep amber. 45 min
How to tell it is going right
This dish has no standard of its own yet. It is judged on the techniques it exercises: checked at the pan, while there is still something to be done about it.
Egg wash & the baker’s shine 34 recipes
- Applied thin and even over every surface that will show, with no bare patches and no ridges or brush lines standing in it.
- Nothing pooled: no wash run down into the seams, collected in the corners, or welded to the tray around the base.
- It has not glued shut what needs to move: layers, scores, and cut edges are still free to open in the heat.
- Baked, the finish is even and glossy across the whole piece and deep gold rather than patchy, with no darker bands where the wash sat heavy.
- The shine is on the outside only: nothing inside the piece tastes of egg.
Where it goes wrong The wash went on heavy and ran into the scores and down to the tray, so the piece baked sealed along its seams, browned unevenly, and carries dark rubbery ridges where the egg collected.
Proofing: the rise before the oven 78 recipes
- Judged on volume against the container rather than on the clock: visibly grown, and grown by roughly the amount the recipe describes.
- The poke test agrees: a floured fingertip pressed a centimetre in leaves a dent that springs back slowly and only part of the way. Straight back means it is not ready; no spring at all means it has gone.
- The surface is domed, smooth, and slightly sheened: not cratered, wrinkled, or collapsed, and not skinned over and dry from proofing uncovered.
- Handled, it feels alive and airy: light for its size, with bubbles visible under the skin.
- It springs in the oven: the piece lifts in the first minutes and the scores open. A shape that does not move at all was proofed past its point before it went in.
Where it goes wrong It was proofed to the clock in a kitchen colder or warmer than the recipe assumed: overproofed, it collapses as the blade touches it and bakes flat and dense with a sour edge; underproofed, it tears at the side and bakes tight.
At the Table
- The Pour
- Grüner Veltliner
- Also Right
- Vermentino or dry Chenin
- From the Taps
- Saison
- Zero-Proof
- Sparkling water with citrus & herbs
The vegetable whisperers: peppery, high-acid whites that flatter greens, roots, and grains without bullying them.
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