Like, getting a box of chocolates or flowers without an occasion? That sounds like it would be nice. Note to Kenny: do that more. Hear me, love of my life?
Another pleasant surprise? Finding a layer of pumpkin cheesecake in the middle of a delicious loaf of pumpkin chocolate chip bread. It’s double the fun!
Now that TV has started up again, I’m overwhelmed by the obligation I have to continue watching many shows. Yes, it’s a chore. A fun one, but a chore nonetheless.
Last season, we watched Superstore. It’s a silly piece of sitcom fluff, and I like silly in my life. Being serious is so overrated. But now I have to find time to add that to the list. See, I’m still trying to finish Casual on Hulu, Suits on Amazon Prime, and then I have to pick up Once Upon a Time again, even though the storyline has gotten totally weird.
The problem is, Kenny and I watch these together, so both of us have to be available (and awake) to make it through. It’s not that logistically easy. He plays ball sometimes, and I have the habit of passing out at 8:30 every night. It’s not auspicious for good TV watching.
Also, Kenny has a very short attention span with TV shows. He forgets them or loses interest quickly, and then we tend to not finish things. like seasons 6 and 7 of Mad Men, which has fallen by the wayside, or seasons 3 and 4 of Orange is the New Black. Gone.
But hey, I shouldn’t complain. We have so many good options. Do you remember when you were at the mercy of the TV schedule? Those grueling days are gone!
You know what else is gone? Plain old pumpkin bread. Not that I’m hating, because I’m not. But this is sooooo much better.
In the middle of these moist and gluten-free layers is pumpkin cheesecake. It’s lovely. The creamy pumpkin middle layer does full justice to the cakey outer layer. Woohoo!
Hope you have a lovely fall TV season, and that you get caught up on all your shows. It’s hard work! Better have some pumpkin chocolate chip cheesecake bread around to make it easier!
Ingredients
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350. Coat a loaf pan with cooking spray and set aside.
- In a large bowl, mix all the dry ingredients except the sugars until well incorporated. Set aside.
- In a medium-sized bowl, combine the eggs and sugars and mix well. Add the pumpkin and oil and stir again. Add the wet ingredients to the dry and beat until a smooth batter has formed. Fold in the milk chocolate chips. Set aside.
- In a small bowl, combine the cream cheese and sugar, stirring until smooth and creamy.Add the egg, pumpkin and pumpkin pie spice, stirring again until the batter has no lumps.
- Pour half of the pumpkin batter into the prepared pan, smoothing it down evenly with a spatula. Pour the cheesecake filling over the top, smoothing that down as well. Finally, top with the remaining pumpkin batter.
- Bake for 30 minutes. At that point, form a loose tent over the bread with foil to prevent the sides from burning before the middle cooks. Bake for an additional 20 minutes.
- Remove the bread from the oven and cool completely. Cut into slices. Store covered. I like mine chilled, but that might not be your preference!
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Do you ever get into a breakfast rut? Because I can relate.
Over the years, I’ve cycled through so many breakfast options with the goal of keeping my first meal of the day quick to prepare and filling. Oh, and sweet. I like that shot of sweetness in the morning!
Since forever, I’ve loved cereal. And while it’s hard to beat a bowl of cereal with milk, sometimes you want a little something different. As a quick bread lover, this breakfast bread fits the bill. It’s topped with a crumbly, crunchy topping made with Kellogg’s Corn Flakes, and the recipe is easy enough to make with the kiddos!
Now that I’m at home more for the summer, I have to find ways to engage my little monsters until camp starts up in two weeks. Oh, camp. It’s the best. It’s when I finally get to take a nap.
But until then, I have a whole schedule to arrange for each day. It includes basic summer activities, like running through sprinklers, making crafts that usually turn out looking funny, and of course, an afternoon baking session. I try to find or create recipes that are pretty simple but that also involve some fun element. We can go shopping in the morning at our local Safeway and have all the ingredients ready for an afternoon baking extravaganza!
In this case, it’s easy to mix up the batter, but my kids can have all the fun of making the crumb topping. And while they do that, I can snack on Corn Flakes and have a fun moment to relax and stare at the wall. Every mom who is home all day with kids needs some quality wall-staring time.
The best part of this recipe is that in the morning when I’m rushing around trying to find clothes for everyone and make sure that nobody is beating anyone else up, this breakfast bread is ready to go. Everyone wants to eat it, everyone’s excited about eating it because they helped make it, and it tastes delightful. I mean, who doesn’t love crumb?
Cereal is the best, but being creative with it yields even better results. Kids might be happy with just cereal and milk, but adults need to go beyond and explore our inner foodies. This Corn Flake cinnamon crumb bread is just the ticket!
If you’re looking for more breakfast ideas, please visit this website for more inspiration for creative breakfast and snack creations. Hope you have some great summer breakfasts ahead of you!
Ingredients
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350. Coat a loaf pan with cooking spray. Set aside.
- In a large bowl, combine all of the cake ingredients until a smooth batter forms. Pour the batter into the prepared loaf pan.
- Make the crumb topping. Combine the dry ingredients and Corn Flakes. Using a fork, a pastry blender or your fingers, work in the butter until crumbs of varying sizes form. Set aside.
- Bake for 25 minutes until the bread is mostly but not fully baked. Sprinkle the crumb topping over the top and return the bread to the oven for an additional 15-20 minutes until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean.
- Cool completely. When the bread is cool, make the glaze. Combine the powdered sugar, cinnamon and vanilla, and add the heavy cream 1 tablespoon at a time until the glaze reaches a consistency that is conducive to drizzling.
- Drizzle the glaze over the cake. Let it set.
- Cut into slices, or store covered.
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Lately, I’ve been trying to bake with conventional flour a little bit less. After all, I’ve got a GF spouse, so it’s the least I can do. The good news is, this bread is still amazing, gluten or no. And it’s filled with strawberries and chocolate chips (and covered in chocolate)!
Can we say thank you? Someone. Please. I’m hungry for praise and dessert.
This is the week my students take the AP test I’ve been preparing them all year for, and I’m feeling pretty good. They’re ready to excel, and I’m ready to sit back and take a deep breath. Another year slowly ends, and another crop of students can now write better than they could nine months ago. I’ll take it.
It’s pretty sad that teenagers have such a bad reputation in our society, because they’re great. They work so hard, and they still believe in making a difference for the better in our world. People complain about them being tuned out with headphones and smartphones, but have you looked around? That’s the adults. They’re just as bad. And they’re old enough to know better.
Even though it’s hard to change your perceptions, try and give adolescents a break. There’s nothing wrong with their generation that wasn’t wrong with yours, too. And they’re dealing with the technology piece as well, which makes their lives a lot more complicated than we can possibly understand. They need support, not condemnation.
Okay, my PSA is over. Let’s get back to dessert. Which, incidentally, teens tend to love as much or more than adults. Their sugar tolerance is higher. Or maybe it’s just their metabolic rate.
This bread is all about moisture. I put in a hefty dose of brown sugar to make that happen, as well as some buttermilk. If you don’t keep buttermilk handy, just take a tablespoon of vinegar or lemon juice (not both!) and put it in a cup, filling the rest with milk up to the one-cup mark. That will work too!
Once the chocolate chips are worked in and a thick chocolate glaze is poured on top, this bread is the ultimate indulgence. And there’s no butter in it or flour. So it’s even kind of healthy!
Take this week to appreciate our younger generation, who will be our bosses soon enough. And enjoy a slice (or five) of this chocolate-covered strawberry bread while you’re at it!
Ingredients
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350. Coat a loaf pan with cooking spray. Set aside.
- In a small bowl, combine the oat flour, baking powder and salt. Set aside.
- In a medium bowl, combine the egg and both sugars, mixing until smooth. Add the buttermilk, oil and vanilla, mixing until combined. Add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients and mix until a smooth batter forms.
- Fold the chopped strawberries and chocolate chips into the batter. Pour the batter into the prepared pan.
- Bake for 45-55 minutes until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean. Cool completely. Turn the bread onto a plate or platter.
- Make the glaze. Combine the ingredients in a microwave-safe bowl and heat at 30-second intervals, stirring after each interval until smooth and glossy.
- Spoon the glaze over the bread. Allow it to set.
- Slice and serve!
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Like, I’ve heard that winning the lottery is pretty awesome. But if that happens to you, you’re not supposed to tell anyone or they’ll be trying to bum your winnings. I guess you’re supposed to pretend that the new mansion (complete with pool, personal trainer and stylist) came from a modest amount that a rich uncle left you upon his passing.
Fresh bread is nothing to keep secret. Oh, no. You have to share it liberally, announcing to one and all that you have a fresh loaf to be eaten. Especially a loaf like this one. It’s got a delicious almond chocolate filling, so it bridges the gap between actual food and dessert. I had it for breakfast!
My son’s birthday was this past weekend, following hard on the heels of Purim, a celebratory Jewish holiday. I’ll show you my Cruella DeVil outfit in a bit. Suffice it to say, we had a busy four days of straight partying. My kids are so sugared up that they can’t see straight.
Celebrations are nice, but for the people who throw them, they’re nothing short of one thing after another. Like, I forgot the birthday candles. Yep, totally spaced them. Luckily, the boy’s cake was blinged out enough without one.
And my Cruella costume was lacking actual fur. For one thing, I couldn’t bring myself to wear one. For another, it was 75 degrees out.
Okay, back to bread. Say hello to your bread machine, because it does all the work for you! Have I mentioned how in love with my bread machine I am? Have I? Have I?
Yeah, yeah, I know. But this miraculous contraption literally lets me set it and forget it, which not a whole lot of life allows anybody to do. Imagine if we could just set and forget everything, from dinner to housework to actual work. Then we wouldn’t need to win the lottery in order to have personal assistants and whatnot.
This bread is made doubly simple by the filling. It’s simply the almond pastry spread they sell in the bakery aisle combined with mini chocolate chips. See? No effort, folks! I’m down with that!
And who can resist the sprinkling of almonds on top? Not me!
It’s been a crazy week, folks, and now I’m heading for some much-needed downtime over spring break. Join me in relaxing over a slice or two of bread!
Ingredients
Instructions
- Place all the dough ingredients into the bread machine in the order indicated by the manufacturer. Typically, wet ingredients go in the pan first, followed by the dry. Select the dough cycle and press start.
- When the cycle is complete, turn the dough out onto a floured surface and let it rest for 10 minutes.
- Roll the dough out into a large rectangle measuring roughly 16 by 21 inches. Spread the almond pastry filling evenly on top and then sprinkle the miniature chocolate chips over the surface.
- Working with the short end first (you want the bread to be fatter than longer), roll up the dough tightly to form an oblong shape, similar to a cake roll.
- Place the bread on a baking sheet and cover with plastic wrap. Let it rise until doubled in size, about 30-45 minutes.
- Preheat the oven to 350.
- Brush the top of the loaf with beaten egg and sprinkle the almonds on top.
- Bake for 25-35 minutes until golden brown. Cut into slices.
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Lately, I’ve been all about the recipes you throw into a bowl and mix together. No mixer, no butter to cream. Not only is that absence of butter healthier, but the actual baking process is just a teeny bit simpler. So why not?
This particular bread is filling and hearty, but full of chocolate chips just to brighten your Friday morning breakfast. Anyone wanna argue with that? I didn’t think so.
If you’ve heard me talk about my job before (my other one, not the blogging gig) as a high school English teacher, you know I love it. There’s not much that is more energizing than spending the day teaching and learning, and if not for the whole having to grade papers thing, it would be the perfect job.
I’m heading into my 17th year as a teacher next year, and it’s given me a lot to reflect about. When I first began teaching, there was so much fear. I thought I wouldn’t be able to reach kids, or help them, or manage a classroom. And while I worked through those fears as the years went on, this job allows nobody to become complacent. The second I decide I have it all figured out is when I get knocked for a loop.
Humility is a huge part of staying successful in teaching, and probably in other fields as well. Every now and then we read about actors or athletes whose stars burn brightly and then explode (in a bad way). Among these stories is a common thread: they weren’t humble enough. They thought they were irreplaceable.
Sadly, we’re all expendable professionally. I might be a good teacher, but there are a bazillion more lined up and waiting to do my job, so I have to give it my all. And in order to do that, I need a good breakfast every morning before I face my amazing students.
This oatmeal chocolate chip bread is incredibly simple. As I mentioned, all you do is mix everything up. No special equipment is necessary. And when you’re done, the result is a not-too-sweet breakfast treat. Actually, I also ate it after work.
However you spend your professional time, it’s important to realize how lucky we are to be given opportunities. Having self-confidence is important, but translating that to an over-inflated sense of ego is where it can all go wrong. Be good enough, and strive to be great. But never forget that it takes constant effort and humility to keep your star in the sky.
Ingredients
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350. Coat a loaf pan with cooking spray. Set aside.
- In a medium bowl, combine the eggs, applesauce, oil and milk. Set aside.
- In a separate bowl, combine the dry ingredients. Pour the wet mixture into the dry mixture and stir until just combined. Fold in the chocolate chips.
- Bake for roughly an hour until the bread is golden brown and a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean.
- Cool completely. Cut into slices.
Happy New Year! It’s my first post of 2016, and I’m so excited to see what this year will bring!
If there’s one food I want to see lots of in the coming year, it’s homemade bread. We’re all familiar with the yeasty goodness of bread that doesn’t come in plastic bags from the grocery store, and it’s so easy to get a perfect loaf with just a little help from my best friend, a.k.a. the bread machine. Life was so cold and dark before we met!
Luckily, fresh bread is always possible, and this one is special. It’s made with mostly whole wheat flour, which will help you stick to your healthy eating resolutions. It’s also full of walnuts for an extra protein punch, not to mention sweet Craisins® Dried Cranberries. It’s a loaf worth making!
On a day like today, I really need the extra sustenance. Studies have shown that today is one of the trickiest of the whole year. People drag themselves back to work and school from the celebrations of weeks past and realize that winter is ahead. If you look at it that way, it can be pretty grim.
But there’s so much to look forward to! Good TV, for instance. A lot of shows took mid-season breaks, but now they’re back. I’ll get to find out if the world ends on Heroes: Reborn, or find out if the world ends on Once Upon a Time. Now that I think about it, maybe I should stop watching television shows that deal with any coming apocalypse. It might explain those disturbing dreams I keep getting.
When I wake up after a night of dreaming and prepare for a day of work after a too-short winter break, I need to have a motivating force to propel me out of bed and into the cold, dark morning. And that force is bread, pure and simple. How could breakfast get any better?
If I’m feeling energetic, the best topping for this bread is cream cheese. But honestly, if I’m in a rush, I’ll eat it alone. There’s so much flavor happening here. Plus, the walnuts provide protein while the Craisins® give me that sweet zing I crave every morning. And with the whole wheat flour, this healthy bread gets me through until lunch. When I have more of the bread, of course. I made sandwiches with this for my kids, and they had a ball calling it “crazy bread.” For years, they’ve referred to Craisins® as “Crazies.” I love it.
And if I’m not packing my Craisins® into the best bread ever, then I’m sending them to work and school with everyone. This time of year, when packing lunches gets harder and harder as we try to find new foods to make everyone happy, we know we’ll always be good with Craisins®! After all, fresh fruit is hard to come by in the winter, but these magical “Crazies” equal a fruit serving.
You might be fighting off a case of the post-holiday blahs, but remember that good things are still in store! Fresh bread and good TV make life better. Instead of making New Year’s resolutions you can’t keep, focus on the joys of life and make this a year to remember!
Ingredients
Instructions
- As recommended by bread machine manufacturers, start with the wet ingredients. Put them into the bread machine in the order listed above.
- Once the wet ingredients are in, add the salt, sugar and both flours.
- Using your index finger, make a small well in the flour. Fill it with the yeast.
- Select the dough cycle on your bread machine and press start.
- Shortly before the dough is set to come out, coat one large or two regular-sized loaf pans with cooking spray. Set aside.
- Once the dough is done (usually about an hour and a half, depending on your machine), take it out and put it on a floured surface.
- Punch the dough down and let it rest for 5-10 minutes. Knead the Craisins® and chopped walnuts into the dough until evenly mixed in.
- Place the dough into the prepared pan(s). Cover with plastic wrap and let the dough rise for an hour.
- When you're ready to bake, preheat the oven to 350. If desired, brush the top of each loaf with beaten egg.
- Bake for 25-30 minutes until golden brown. Cool. Store in a bread box or airtight container.
To find Craisins® and other products (like new Craisins® Fruit Clusters), look in the dried fruit section at Walmart!
For some reason, people associate Mother’s Day with brunch. Okay, I know that it’s traditional to take mothers out for brunch on the big day, but why? Don’t we rate a fancy dinner?
Listen, I’m not trying to knock brunch. The food is delicious and decadent, and it’s totally fine to feature chocolate in your pancakes, or waffles, or French toast. How could I possibly object to that? But I really, really love going out for dinner. Dinner out means one night of not having to cook for greedy little mouths.
Still, to appease you brunch fanatics out there, I made this cinnamon crumb bread. It’s pretty awesome, and to be fair, you can also have it for dessert. After dinner out.
I’m being appreciated a lot this week. Yes, Sunday is Mother’s Day, but apparently, this week is Teacher Appreciation Week. That means I got a Reese’s peanut butter cup bar in my mailbox this morning (how well they know me), chips in my box yesterday, and an apple the day before. And it’s really nice to get all the free stuff.
The thing is, I really love coming to work. People talk about how exhausting teaching is, how drained you feel at the end of the day, how demanding everyone can be. So true. But sometimes we get into such a negative place about this profession that we don’t see the great stuff. Like, how every morning, some kid I don’t know holds the door open for me to enter or exit because their parents raised them properly. How my students say “thank you” as they leave the classroom. How I laugh out loud every day so many times, even though I’m not much of a laugher. I mean, kids are funny. Even the 17 year-old ones I teach.
They are also really cool about sharing ideas. I needed some baking inspiration last week, so I asked a few about summer dessert ideas. Boy, did they step up to the plate. It turns out that teenagers really like to think about food.
And so do I, which might be why I love being a high school teacher. It’s even more exciting when ideas come by surprise, like this bread. I never thought about making it until I made these Cinnamon Donuts with Chocolate Dipping Sauce a couple of weeks back, and that formed the basis for making a bread with tons of crumb on top.
You can’t lose with crumb. You can’t lose with cinnamon. And you definitely can’t lose if you celebrate life regularly, not just on the days or weeks that are meant as designated appreciation moments. Translation? Eat dessert daily. And for you moms and teachers out there, enjoy the next few days!
Ingredients
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350. Spray a loaf pan with cooking spray. Set aside.
- In a large bowl, combine the flour, sugar, baking powder, cinnamon, nutmeg, and salt. In a small bowl, whisk together the egg, milk, melted butter, and vanilla. Stir the wet mixture into the dry ingredients until just combined.
- Pour the batter into the loaf pan. Set aside.
- Make the crumb topping. Mix the powdered sugar, flour and cinnamon. Add the melted butter and, using your hands along with a spatula, combine the ingredients to form large crumbs.
- Sprinkle the crumbs evenly over the cake batter.
- Put the pan in the oven and bake until done, between 40-50 minutes. Insert a toothpick into the center to test for doneness.
- Cool. Cut into slices and serve.
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We all have our version of that, the near-impossible summit that we can’t reach no matter how hard we try. For years, that was my grandmother’s mocha bread. When I was little, I didn’t like apple pie. Chalk it up to youthful foolishness. So when my grandmother made the pie, she’d also make this bread. And I loved it. It was so special that I’d eat it slowly, sliver by sliver, to make it last. Usually, I gobble up my dessert. But this was too special.
And when I grew up, I tried to make it. Over and over again I followed the recipe, calling my grandmother each time I failed. It was too light in color, or too heavy in weight. What was I doing wrong? It got to the point where I suspected her of recipe sabotage.
Finally, about a year ago and shortly after my grandmother’s death, I got the mocha bread right. I’m still not sure exactly what I did to make it correctly other than acquire more knowledge and skill, but I feel like the torch has been passed. She was a phenomenal baker who used scant resources in harder times to make amazing food. Later in life, she still had the knack for producing recipes that nobody else seemed to have.
So I’m sharing this piece of my family legacy with you. I almost want to call it a mocha pound cake, but I’ll hold back because though the crumb is dense, the bread is light and spongy. And as you’ll see, the chocolate is not dominant. The lighter brown color indicates that the bread really features coffee above chocolate, though both flavors come out in excellent balance.
I should also mention that I call this a bread because it’s a loaf cake, very much like a banana or pumpkin bread. It has that appealing softness and is never dry.
While I often encourage being experimental, don’t change things up when you’re making this. It just won’t turn out the same way. That’s why I’ve written the minutes into how long everything gets mixed. And when you’re scraping the melted chocolate into the mixing bowl, get as much of it into the batter as you can. That will produce the richness in color.
Having this bread with a cup of coffee is awesome, but it goes equally well with tea or, as I can attest to having first eaten it as a child, milk. And be ready: people will ask you for the recipe.
Ingredients:
- 2/3 cup butter or margarine, softened (the latter if you want to avoid dairy)
- 2 cups flour minus 2 tablespoons
- 1 and 1/2 cup sugar
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 1 tablespoon instant coffee
- 1/2 teaspoon cream of tartar
- 1/4 teaspoon baking soda
- 1/2 cup water
- 1 teaspoon vanilla
- 3 eggs
- 1 square unsweetened chocolate, melted
Instructions:
Preheat the oven to 325. Grease a loaf pan with cooking spray.
Combine the dry ingredients in a bowl and set aside.
Cream the butter or margarine in the bowl of a stand mixer. Add the dry ingredients and mix slowly. Add the water and vanilla, mixing until the flour is dampened, then beat more vigorously for two minutes.
Add the eggs and melted chocolate and then beat for an additional minute.
Pour the batter into the loaf pan and bake for 65-70 minutes until the edges are browned and the middle is firm. Test with a toothpick if in doubt.
Cool and remove from the pan. Using a serrated knife, cut into slices.
]]>Challah, that is.
Challah is too awesome to fly so much under the radar. It’s traditionally an egg bread made with white flour and sugar, kind of like brioche. It makes amazing French toast. There are also water versions, calling for no egg, as well as challahs filled with anything from raisins to chocolate chips.
And lately, whole wheat challah has begun to pop up in bakeries with more frequency, though it’s often put down by challah traditionalists, and who can blame them? Challah is an indulgence, a bread so good that spreading butter or jam on a slice can actually take away from the yeasty, fresh-out-of-the-oven perfection of the bread itself.
I was pretty hestitant to give the whole wheat thing a try. Why fix what ain’t broke? But in a world where whole grains are healthier and white bread is just an occasional indulgence, I wanted to have my challah and eat it too.
After much experimenting, this puppy was born.
It tastes surprisingly non-whole wheat-y thanks to two things: a generous amount of honey and vanilla along with a hybrid of whole wheat and bread flour. It’s mostly whole wheat, but I kept some of the bread flour in there to give the loaves that stretchy, chewy, yeasty texture that contrasts so nicely with a crisp crust.
See? Isn’t she pretty?
Okay, honestly, I did the best I could. Making the dough is the easy part, thanks to my best friend (a.k.a. the bread machine). Braiding it, on the other hand, can be a real struggle. As my son’s adorable friend asked, “Why does the chawwah wook so weiwd?” Well, kiddo, I tried.
Speaking of kids, they love it when you make the dough into shapes. I do the letters of their names, or Mickey Mouse. Though note I did not provide a photo of that attempt. The ears sorta fell off Mickey’s head.
But it’s all about the journey, right? The journey to fresh, warm, home-baked bread that you can feel virtuous about eating. And serve on pretty platters.
So how do you achieve healthy bread heaven? Take a look:
Ingredients:
- 2 eggs at room temperature
- 1 cup warm (not hot) water
- 2 tablespoons honey
- 2 teaspoons vanilla
- 1/2 cup canola oil
- 2 and 1/2 teaspoons salt
- 1/2 cup sugar
- 3 and 1/2 cups whole wheat flour
- 1 cup bread flour
- 2 and 1/4 tablespoons yeast (if you use a packet, it’s pre-measured)
Instructions:
As recommended by bread machine manufacturers, start with the wet ingredients. Put them into the bread machine in the order listed above.
Once the wet ingredients are in add the salt and sugar and then pour in the flour.
Using your index finger, make a small well in the flour. Fill it with the yeast.
Select the dough cycle on your bread machine and press start.
Shortly before the dough is set to come out, line two cookie sheets with aluminum foil and spray liberally with cooking spray.
Once the dough is done (usually about an hour and a half, depending on your machine), take it out and put it on a floured surface.
Punch the dough down and let it rest for 5-10 minutes.
Using your hands or a sharp knife, divide the dough in half. Then, separate each half into three equal sections. Rolling each section between your palms, elongate each piece into a rope. Cross the ropes over each other into a braid and pinch the ends together.
Note: you can shape the challah any way you like, so you can also make rolls, round challah, or whatever suits you!
Once the dough is shaped, place it on the prepared foil-lined pans. Cover the dough in plastic wrap and let it rise, about one hour. Sometimes it takes an hour and a half, depending on the temperature and humidity of your kitchen.
When the dough is risen, preheat the oven to 350. Once the oven is ready, put in the challah.
10 minutes into baking, rotate the challah pans so that they bake evenly. Then, put the challah back in the oven for another 10-15 minutes until the tops are golden and the underside is medium brown.
Let the challah cool a bit before eating. However, if you are not eating it right away, wrap it in plastic or foil and then heat again before serving.
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