- Mixer
- Small measuring bowl (or any bowl, if you use your scale properly)
- Scale
- 1,000g bread flour (I use King Arthur)
- 13g salt
- 360g hot water
- 100g honey (+- 25mg depending on your desired sweetness)
- 140-165g of eggs (~3 larger or extra large eggs)
- 1 extra egg (for glazing)
- 8-10g yeast
- 80g olive oil
Put your small mixing bowl on the scale, zero it, and measure out 360 grams (ml) of hot water. The heat is to make the honey dissolve more easily, and hot faucet water is usually hot enough. Add the ~100 grams of honey, stirring to dissolve. (The beauty of using a scale is that if you're at the end of a the honey jar, you don't have to throw away the honey that's too stuck to come out. Just pour some of the hot water from your bowl into the honey jar, shake it until the honey dissolves and pour it back. The scale will tell you how much honey was added.)
Before adding the 8-10 grams of yeast, make sure the water is below 50 Celsius (faucet water is sometimes as high as 60 C), as if it's higher the yeast will die. There's no need to stir. It can sit on top.
In your mixer's bowl (at least 5 liters large), add the 1,000 grams bread flour and the 13 grams salt.
Add the ~3 (140-165 grams) of eggs) and 80 grams of olive oil between 140-165g of eggs (3 larger or extra large egs) then 80g olive oil. (The only reason the order matters is that it's easier to remove stray egg shells if you haven't put the olive oil in yet.)
Add the contents of the measuring pitcher into the mixing bowl, combining all ingredients.
Mix at a slow speed with a stand mixer, or kneed. The dough should be moist just enough to absorb all the flour but not so moist as to stick to your hands or the mixer. If it’s not moist enough, add water in 15-25 gram increments. If it’s too moist, add flour in 25-50 gram increments.
Let the dough rise in a warm, moist environment until it has just about doubled in size. Put a wet towel over the bowl to keep it moist, making sure there’s enough room for the dough to double. If there isn’t, transfer to a larger bowl. Let rise for about 90-120 minutes.
Cut the dough and braid the challah. Place the challah onto parchment paper or a lightly oiled sheet of aluminum foil, which may be layered on top of a cookie sheet for easy transport.
Glaze the challah with a beaten egg. You can wait until you’ve braided all the challahs you are making, but don’t wait longer than that because the dough will get more fragile as it rises.
Let the challah rise for about another 75-150 minutes, depending on temperature and moisture of the room and how fluffy you like it to be. (2 hours is a pretty medium bet so long as your kitchen isn't frigid.)
Baking time and temperatures vary based on location, oven, and the thickness of the challah. 35 minutes at 165 degrees Celsius (~330 fahrenheit) is a good baseline. Keep an eye on the challah starting at 25 minutes. Try to keep it in the middle of the oven so that neither the top nor the bottom overcook.