Recipe - Ruths Own Challah Recipe

7 cup Flour; (I prefer bread flour
or unbleached) (up to
71/2)
2 Cakes baker's yeast
1/3 cup Sugar; (a bit more if you
like it sweeter)
2 One half teaspoon Salt
1 One half cup Warm water; (not so hot as
to kill the yeast)
5 Eggs
1 Egg white; (reserve the yolk
in a cup and cover w/water)
Three fourths Stick margarine

Into your mixer, plase the yeast, sugar, salt, eggs, margarine and 2 cups
of the flour. Start to mix, gradually adding the flour until the mixer will
no longer go. You may want to change to the dough hook and continue to add
flour until it is all used up.

Transfer to a well floured board and start to knead the dough. Add
additional flour as needed until the dough has a "silky" feel. This is when
the dough no longer sticks to your hands when you hold it, and should take
about 10 minutes of kneading.

Place the dough in a well oiled bowl and let rise until double. (You will
know it is ready to punch down when you put two fingers into the dough and
it does not come back to you) Punch dough down and let rise again until
double.

After the second rising, place dough on board and cut into about three
equal pieces. (If you want smaller challas, cut four.) Braid as desired and
place on a cookie sheet which has been sprinkled with coarse corn meal.

Using that reserved egg yolk (spill off the water you covered it with to
keep it), add 2 teaspoons of water and beat until mixed. "Frost" the
challas and sprinkle with either poppy or sesame seeds. Allow to rise until
about double.

Preheat oven to about 425 degrees and bake the challas for about l5
minutes, reduce oven to 350 degrees and finish baking, ( Challah will sound
hollow when tapped with your fingernail ). This should take about another
20 25 minutes.

Remove from cookie sheets to racks to prevent the challah from "sweating".
They freeze well and can be made with raisins for the New Year, I just
eliminate the seeds.
Posted to JEWISHFOOD digest Volume 98 #022 by "Ruth Frier"
antruthy@flash.net on Jan 11, 1998