This is the easiest, best tasting challah in the entire world. This bread is so easy, there is literally no kneading, but you do need to plan ahead. It is best if you can prep it on Tuesday night so it has 3 days to chillax in the fridge before baking it up fresh on Friday.
If you got to this recipe and it’s already Friday go ahead and make my super popular classic Challah recipe.
Jamie Geller’s No Knead Challah Bread
Servings
2 Loaves
Ingredients
- 8+ cups bread, high gluten flour
- 1 tablespoon kosher salt
- 1 tablespoon active dry yeast
- 2 – 2 ½ cups lukewarm water best temperature is 105°F
- 3 whole eggs + 1 yolk
- ½ cup sugar
- ½ cup extra virgin olive oil
- 1 egg plus 2 tablespoon water for egg wash
Instructions
- Combine flour, salt, yeast, water, eggs, sugar and evoo.
- Mix until combined.
- Cover with lightly greased plastic wrap.
- Allow mixture to sit at room temperature for 2 hours before refrigerating for up to 3 days, but for a minimum of 2 days (the flour needs that much time to form gluten strands to give the bread texture).
- When you are ready to make challah, remove dough from refrigerator
- Braid as desired.
- Place braids on parchment lined baking sheets and cover with lightly greased plastic wrap.
- Allow to rise at room temperature for 1-2 hours or up to 3 (a long rise is necessary for the dough).
- Preheat oven to 350° F. Brush your challah with egg wash. Once your oven comes to temperature, brush on egg wash again.
- Bake for 12 minutes, rotate the pan, and bake until 12 to 15 minutes more until golden brown and perfectly cooked.
- Let cool and enjoy.
I can’t rate the recipe until I try it. It looks relatively easy. We tried to make another allegedly easy recipe last week and we found that perhaps the yeast (labled good until 9/27) was not as alive as alleged or something was wrong with the recipe or both. In other words, we ended up with non rising dough, a very dense but still tasty Challah shaped whatever. Thank you providing recipes. My husband loves carrots, so I will try the carrot soup as well.
Oh no, hope the next time will work.
Hi! thank you for the recipe! The amount of sugar is important? Can I make it salty, with less sugar? Thank you!
You can try it with less sugar, but I can’t confirm how it will be.
Can this recipe be done as round loaves ?
Sure, it will work.
That should be about 2 times the recipe, so I would double everything, but don’t use all the flour at once, start with 16 cups, about 4 1/2 pounds and then add as needed.
Hi , if I want to use 5lbs of flour how would I adjust thE rest of the ingredients ?
We tested the recipe several times and by several people and usually found 48 hours was the perfect amount of time, so I am not sure why it may have been too long for you, and I am not sure how you would know, maybe when it is nice and bubbly and has doubled in size.
Thank you
So sorry, it sounds like it may have proofed too long in the fridge there are so many factors that affect bread baking it is hard to know for sure
Thanks. The dough was in the fridge for 48 hours as per the recipe. Is there something that indicates when dough is ready? It started rising within a few hours. On the plus side, in spite of fairly flat loaves, the taste is delicious!
Also, can this recipe used as a regular challah dough recipe rather then putting it in the fridge for hours? Thanks.
I think my challahs are a bust. The dough rose beautifully in the fridge. But the loaves barely rose once braided. Mainly they spread out. Now they’re baking and I’ve just turned them around. Sadly no rise.
Mine turned out absolutely delicious and I have kept it in the refrigerator and used it over two weeks! It still tastes good! I guess the Lord has preserved it for us <3
I made it and I loved it! The texture is really nice and and airy and it was easy to make. I put it together Saturday morning and cooked it Monday afternoon.
The flavor was bland but would be good for sandwich bread during the week. Had a great texture!
That sounds a bit strange, but could be that it was extra warm where you left it. Since we aren’t kneading the bread it does better by being left to its own devices.
I guess that doesn’t really answer. Also, out of curiosity…I am making this bread that will take 3 days in order to save me 10 minutes of kneading time; is the texture different? Flavor different? What is the benefit?
The texture is a bit different, but it is mostly about saving the kneading time.
I took the dough out of the fridge this morning to braid. I had to punch it down more than once while it was in the fridge to keep the lid from popping off. The dough now has a yeasty smell, similar to sourdough or a beer factory (I live in a beer city). The dough was pliable and easy to work with. The challos are rising now and I look forward to the final flavor on Shabbos. I’m not sure I will make this again, only because kneading dough is no big deal for me and and a dough that takes 3 days to eliminate that small bit of kneading seems silly; but it was definitely fun to make the dough on Tuesday in anticipation for Shabbos. It also mixed nicely in my kitchen aid so no need to get my hands dirty. I made 3 loaves instead of 2. I attached a raw picture and baked picture; beautiful!
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/35d59376733de0e53a36bba4f7b01fdf98d77be2e7765525732465eb7c0db1d5.jpg https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/b0941e09ba2fd4edf7f433bc03745619e20fe9eefd64cabead6a5d5b48325bce.jpg
Thanks for sharing. They look amazing