Recipe - Challah

5 cup Unbleached allpurpose
flour; (maybe more)
1 tablespoon Salt
One half cup Raisens [opt]
One half cup Sugar
1 Heaping tbsp. yeast
3 tablespoon Pareve margarine; melted
1 One fourth Warm water
5 Eggs room temp
Sesame seeds

The Jewish Holiday Kitchen by Joan Nathan; Schocken Books

2 loaves

Preheat oven to warm[104degrees F] Mix flour, salt, [rasins], in a large
bowl making a well in the center. Add One fourth cup sugar to well cover with
yeast and top with the remaing One fourth cup sugar. Mix yeast and suager in the
well.

Add the margarine to the warm water slowly mixing well. Add margarine
mixture to the yeast mixture and mix well. Set aside 1 egg plus the yolk of
another. Add remaing eggs plus the extra white individually into the dough,
kneading well after each addition untill all the flour is absorbed. As you
knead you may have to add more flour so have some handy. Cover the bowl
with waxed paper smeared with margarine then with a towel, put in warm oven
for One half hour. Go clean out your mixer bowl. Dry.

When dough is almost doubled in size punch it down and knead for 2 min with
mixer. Put bread back into bowl for rising and cover with greased paper and
towel let rise for 1520 min more in warm oven. Remove punch down knead.
Recover and let rise for 1520 minutes in the warm oven. Turn onto a pastry
board and knead throughly. Using a knife cut dough in half. then divide
each piece into 6. Add a little flour and knead each portion. Roll each
portion into ropes 9" in length.

Put 6 ropes side by side touching at one end. Pinch that end to seal. Bring
the extreme right rope over the next three. Then bring the extreme left
over three. Continue untill the bread is completely braided. When no more
can be braided pinch ends to seal together. Shape to the size of pan.[ I
use cookie sheets] Put bread on pan. Braid remaing loaf.

Brush loaves with the remaining egg+yolk making sure you get in all the
cracks. Sprinkle with the sesame seeds. Place in warm oven for 20 minutes.
Raise oven temp to 200degrees F for 15 min. Raise oven temp tp 275
degress F for 15 min Finally raise the oven temp to 375degrees F for 1015
min until bread is golden brown. This bread freezes well.

Posted to JEWISHFOOD digest Volume 98 #010 by Sara Sutherland
msuther@gte.net on Jan 06, 1998