Challah Bread / Hefezopf Step by Step Recipe and Food Photoshoot
Fluffy, soft, and oh so delicious. This bread, eaten together with some jam guarantees a good morning.
You will enjoy this one.
So this time I have a bread recipe for you, more specific Challah Bread or here in Germany better known as "Hefezopf" (Yeast braid). A bread that is perfect for breakfast and brunch. Its soft and on the sweet side and so it goes perfectly with jelly or jam. With the weather getting better (-2° C right now, wait what?) and the mornings getting brighter, enjoying the first sun rays and eating on the balcony is an option again. And what better breakfast than a fluffy Challah bread and homemade jam could you possibly be asking for?
Preparations:
A really simple recipe where the most difficult part is the braiding itself. So what do you need?
Well not to much actually. You can make this completely by hand if you want that. A kitchen with basic equipment like an oven and a kitchen machine will do just fine. So let's skip preparations this time and dive straight into baking.
Ingredients:
| For the dough | For the coat |
|---|---|
| 250g Whipping cream | 1 Egg yolk |
| 500g Plain flour / all purpose flour | 2 tbsp whole milk |
| 7g Yeast | |
| 8g Vanilla sugar | |
| 80g Sugar | |
| A pinch of salt | |
| 2 Whole eggs (~60g with shell each) | |
| 1 Egg white | |
| Some lemon zest (optional) |
Instructions:
Step 1: Shortly heat up the whipping cream so that it is luke-warm. While the cream is heating up, thoroughly mix the flour with the yeast and then add the remaining ingredients. Mix everything with a kitchen machine on the lowest speed (1 knot) for a minute or until the milk starts to integrate. After a minute you can increase the speed to 3 knots and mix the dough for about 5 minutes or until it is smooth and elastic but still slightly sticky. Once done, move the dough into a lightly greased bowl, cover it with a wet cloth and let it rise in a warm place for ~60 minutes or until double in size.
(To make sure your dough is just right, try the windowpane test it should look similar to this )
Step 2: Once your dough rose, place it on a lightly floured surface and with the help of a bit more flour form it into a smooth ball. Half that ball into 2 and half those 2 again so that you end up with 4 equal balls of dough.
Step 3: Roll each ball into about 30cm / 12 inch long roles and weave them into your Challah braid.
For that follow these steps:
Step 1
Connect the upper ends well and take your rightmost role, place it over the second, under the third, and over the fourth again.
Step 2
Repeat the process. So take the rightmost one, place it over the second role, under the third and over the fourth role again.
Step 3
Repeat this process until the end. Once there, cut off the spare ends and connect the tips well, kind of pushing them under the bread.
Step 4: Place your bread on a baking paper and preheat your oven. (Convection heat 160 ° C / 320° F or Conventional 180° C / 360° F)
Step 5: Whisk your egg yolk with the milk and apply the mixture on to the bread. Let the dough proof for another 30-45 minutes.
Step 6: Once the dough rose apply the egg wash again and then bake the bread for 20-25 minutes.
After baking let the dough cool down on a wire rack
Footer:
And with that my fifth recipe post is done. I have been on steem for 16 days now and I'm really enjoying, it's a great community and the people are really helpful and nice. I'm looking forward to the coming weeks when my vacation starts and I finally get to focus more on my hobbies. So expect more frequent posts coming in 2 weeks ^^. And as always thanks for reading and commenting I appreciate every feedback I get. If you have any recipes that you would like me to do, let me know. Until then Bon appétit!
My other Recipes:
Source image window pane test
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You are my hero! Beautiful challah!
I made beer bread a day ago but was not thrilled with the result. I need to tweak the recipe and will make a post as well;)
Great job on that challah! I will finally need to make one myself.
I'm looking forward to your post, good luck and thanks for the feedback!
It looks so yummy! Perfect for a cup of tea!
Yea that's a really good idea, gonna have to try that out tomorrow morning 😅!
Yup, yo do! And also think at me while drinking it haha! Cause I really really love tea with this kind of 'dessert' yum yumm. It's one of my comfort food, you know? :p
There really is something comforting about this ^^! Especially if you sit on your balcony and enjoy the early sunrise, sip on your tea and eat your challah with homemade jelly. I will keep you in mind 😇 thanks.
The bread looks so yummy, haven't seen bread recipes with cream before is that what helps to make it light any fluffy?
Yes, I believe it does. I read in a cooking book that adding cream instead of whole milk will change the baking process due to the higher fat content. So, in general, adding cream to cake recipes will result in a softer texture as well as a richer flavor. However, you can't just go around replacing milk with cream in all recipes as the higher fat content could also ruin the chemical structure and result in some unwanted changes in the baking process. But in this case its fine as long as you don't add too much cream ^^.