Torah Explorers

This week it was our three year old’s turn to pick the challah recipe and she was determined to bake a honey challah. We looked through our cookbooks and found a unique recipe from Jeffrey Nathan’s cookbook Adventures in Jewish Cooking. Honey Challah is simple to make, as the ingredients are mixed together in a heavy-duty mixer and with the simple change from paddle blade to bread hook attachment, there’s no knead to knead and no pile of mixing bowls to wash. We got an early start and before I dropped them off at school the kids helped me to pour the ingredients into the mixer. Within the recommended eight minutes a perfect, smooth ball of dough had formed. This is a great recipe for a first-timer as the directions for creating a braided challah are simple and easy to follow, the best I’ve read yet. I look forward to trying many of the recipes in this book. I had the pleasure of attending a cooking class taught by Nathan a few years ago and the knife he recommended is still one of my favorite ones.

The end result was tasty, the vanilla extract took me by suprise but coupled with the honey create a subtle sweetness. The kids loved it and our son’s Hebrew school class gobbled up the second loaf. Ultimately a sweet bread, but slightly bittersweet experience. As much as I appreciated the neat preparation and end result I missed the kneading and the mess?!?

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