Celebrate the New Year of the Trees with a gorgeous 7 Species Challah. Impressive and delicious, this challah recipe is truly a delicious way to celebrate nature and Israel.
Modern bread making utilizes a sponge instead of old-fashioned “proofing yeast”. Modern yeast is mostly reliable, making that step unnecessary. A sponge yields a flavorful and better textured end result.
Cultivated yeast is a “magnet” for wild yeast (which is literally everywhere) and adds flavor and density to loaves, also allowing you, the bread baker, to use less yeast in your recipe. Less yeast means your loaves won’t stale as quickly as commercial loaves or those that don’t utilize a sponge.
7 Species Challah
Servings
2 Loaves
Ingredients
Sponge
- ½ cup warm water
- ½ cup pomegranate juice at room temperature
- 2½ teaspoons yeast
- 1 cup bread flour
- 2½ teaspoons kosher salt
Challah Dough
- 1 cup barley flour
- ½ cup extra virgin olive oil
- ⅓ cup silan date (honey) syrup
- 2 whole eggs
- 3 egg yolks
- 4 – 5 cups bread flour
- ½ cup raisins
- ½ cup dried figs stemmed and chopped
Egg Wash
- 1 whole egg
- 1 tablespoon water
Instructions
Sponge:
- In a mixing bowl for a stand mixer, combine water, pomegranate juice, yeast, bread flour, and salt. Cover and allow to rise for 1 to 3 hours. The surface of the sponge will appear puffy and spongy in texture with bubbles and divots. The sponge will also smell rich and yeasty with a bit of an alcohol aroma. Those are the flavor building blocks for good bread!
Dough:
- Add barley flour, evoo, silan, whole eggs, yolks, flour, raisins, and figs to sponge. Knead until a dough that is slightly tacky forms. You don’t want to add too much flour to produce a dry dough. Flour needs to rehydrate and a tacky dough allows enough moisture to do that.
- Either cover and refrigerate dough overnight or cover and allow to rise about 2 to 3 hours in a warm spot before braiding. If you cover and refrigerate, the next day allow dough to come to room temperature before braiding.
- Once dough has risen, braid or pan as desired on a greased baking sheet or pan. Cover and allow to rise at least 2 to 3 hours. A long second rise gives the dough better flavor, so do not rush the second rise!
Egg Wash:
- Preheat oven to 350°F.
- Whisk egg and water.
- Brush egg wash on challah. Allow to “set-up” on dough for 10 minutes. Brush dough a second time for a lacquered effect.
- Bake at 350°F for 12 to 15 minutes, rotate baking pan, and bake an additional 12 to 15 minutes or until you hear a hollow sound when bread is thumped gently.
Small, Medium, Large and Extra Large
Ashkenazim are not so makpeed (rigorous) where it comes to how they make their challah. This challah has all the fixings for a cake: barley flour, eggs, honey, raisins, figs and pomegranate juice and she threw in some bread flour and water etc. Sephardim would definitely NOT make a motzei on this bread but would on a standard, non-sweet challah, make the bracha of motzei and then possibly partake of the 7 species challah as a side snack. Separdim are not into sweet breads considering all the delicacies they eat, they want to taste the flavor of the foods not the bread. Eating this with Baba Ghanoush, Dolmas orTaboule, – they would clash.
On airline meals, fruit juice is used in the making of the rolls but because you are eating a meal, you’re חייב to wash for motzei as you will see mentioned in the slip of paper packed with your meal. Eating this bread alone requires a ברכה אחרונה not a ברכת המזון. This is similar to a CinnALoaf that used to be made CinnaBon
We always use large eggs.
Are the eggs here large (53g – 63g) or medium (63 – 73g) – sorry this may be UK specific question.- not sure how eggs work elsewhere..!
Glad you tried it. We had fun creating it. Enjoy!
The dough looks great—it is now on its second rise ready to bake. A really different recipe.
It might be, depends on a few things and it would be best to consult your Rabbi. This is what our Rabbi said,
There are different customs among ashkenazim and Sephardim. For an ashkenazi if a person eats this as part of main meal and not just a snack, it’s hamotzie. For Sephardim since it has fruit juice, it could very much qualify for mezonot. However to be absolutely sure, their should be no water added and only fruit juice which for a Sepharidie would make it mezonot for sure.
It seems to me this recipe would make the challah m’zonot.