Morning Rosemary challah bread recipe!

This was my first time making challah bread, and it was extremely difficult, but with the right recipe instructions, it came out pretty good! I used this recipe from cooking.nytimes.com, its extremely helpful! I’ll paste the recipe here but if you want any extra tips, check out the website!

https://cooking.nytimes.com/recipes/7199-my-favorite-challah

Ingredients

1 ½ packages active dry yeast (about 3 1/2 teaspoons)

1 tablespoon plus 1/2 cup sugar

½ cup vegetable oil, more for greasing bowl

5 large eggs

1 tablespoon salt

8 to 8 ½ cups all-purpose flour

Poppy seed sesame seeds (or roesmary!) for sprinkling

PREPARATION

• In a large bowl, dissolve yeast and 1 tablespoon sugar in 1 3/4 cups lukewarm water.
• Whisk oil into yeast, then beat in 4 eggs, one at a time, with remaining sugar and salt. Gradually add flour. When dough holds together, it is ready for kneading. (You can also use a mixer with a dough hook for both mixing and kneading.)
• Turn dough onto a floured surface and knead until smooth. Clean out bowl and grease it, then return dough to bowl. Cover with plastic wrap, and let rise in a warm place for 1 hour, until almost doubled in size. Dough may also rise in an oven that has been warmed to 150 degrees then turned off. Punch down dough, cover and let rise again in a warm place for another half-hour.
• (This step was a little confusing to me, so I used this video from Pinterest to help me braid my bread! https://pin.it/3VT3uGp ) To make a 6-braid challah, either straight or circular, take half the dough and form it into 6 balls. With your hands, roll each ball into a strand about 12 inches long and 1 1/2 inches wide. Place the 6 in a row, parallel to one another. Pinch the tops of the strands together. Move the outside right strand over 2 strands. Then take the second strand from the left and move it to the far right. Take the outside left strand and move it over 2. Move second strand from the right over to the far left. Start over with the outside right strand. Continue this until all strands are braided. For a straight loaf, tuck ends underneath. For a circular loaf, twist into a circle, pinching ends together. Make a second loaf the same way. Place braided loaves on a greased cookie sheet with at least 2 inches in between.
• Beat remaining egg and brush it on loaves. Either freeze breads or let rise another hour.
• If baking immediately, preheat oven to 375 degrees and brush loaves again. If freezing, remove from freezer 5 hours before baking. Then dip your index finger in the egg wash, then into poppy or sesame seeds and then onto a mound of bread. Continue until bread is decorated with seeds.
• Bake in middle of oven for 35 to 40 minutes, or until golden. Cool loaves on a rack.

My personal recipe add on’s

• To make the bread a lil extra crispy and flakey, I put egg wash on my bread right before I put it in the oven, and 15 minutes before I have to take it out.
• I Sprinkled rosemary, dried onions, salt, and pepper on my challah before putting it in the oven and it was DELICIOUS. I definitely recommend these garnishes 💓

This was definitely a pretty difficult bread, so I don’t have my own personal recipe yet, but I’ll definitely make more of this amazing braided bread in the future! And record it as well!