1 cup hot water
2 Tablespoons sugar
1 1/2 Tablespoons yeast or one packet
Mix the sugar in the hot water so that it melts. Make sure that it is not scalding hot when you put the yeast in or you will kill the yeast. You’ll know your yeast is good because when you set the yeast and water/sugar mixture aside, it will start to bubble!
2 eggs
1/2 cup oil
1/2 cup honey (yes! 1/2 cup!)
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon (or a little more) vanilla extract
Mix these all together.
5 cups flour
Put oil, honey, eggs, and salt in a bowl and mix. Add two cups of flour to this mixture. After that is mixed, add the yeast/sugar/water mixture. (again, the yeast/sugar/water should be nice and bubbly! if it’s not, your yeast is not good, go get more)
Add the flour one cup at a time as you mix and start to knead. Depending on the weather and humidity, you will either need more or less flour.
Knead it until it is in a nice ball, not too dry though.
Put the ball in a bowl that you have lightly oiled, cover and let sit for two hours, or double in size, or overnight if it’s Thursday. If you’re doing it overnight, I put some plastic wrap loosely over the bowl so air can still escape. Cover with your favorite towel. I use my gramma’s towel that is falling apart and only used for this purpose. It’s the “gramma spice” that I add.
After the dough has risen, take it out of the bowl. Knead a little. Divide into either two, three, or even four challot. Then divide those into how ever many pieces you’re going to use to braid.
Put the braided dough on your cookie sheet, cover again, and let rise for one hour.
After one hour, pre-heat oven to 350.
Brush the top of the challah with scrambled egg with a little water.
Bake from anywhere to 15-25 minutes, depends on size of the challah. If it starts too brown too quickly, loosely tent it with foil. When you knock on the challah and it sounds challah, it’s done!
