8-Ingredient Vegan Challah
This fluffy bread is a perfect addition to most meals or you can eat it all by itself for breakfast or dessert (honestly, I'd eat this any time of day). While this recipe does require some higher level skills, these are skills you can learn with a little bit of practice.
Servings: 3 challah loaves
Ingredients
- 7.5 cups flour plus more for kneading
- 2.5 cups water
- .75 cups sugar
- .5 cups oil
- 1 tbsp instant yeast**
- 1.5 tsp salt
- non-dairy milk
- maple syrup
- toppings as needed
Instructions
- Mix the sugar, oil, salt, and water in a large bowl until everything is dissolved. Using warm water helps.
- Add 3 cups of flour and mix. All the clumps may not go away. It’s okay, you can go on to the next step!
- Combine the yeast with 1 cup of flour in a separate small bowl. After they have been mixed, add them to the dough mixture and stir in.
- Slowly continue adding flour. As your mixture becomes thicker, add the flour more and more slowly. Add flour until the dough only slightly sticks to your hands.
- Knead the dough with your hands in the bowl at first for approximately 5 minutes. You’ll need to coat your hands with flour as needed, and continue reapplying the flour throughout so that the dough remains only slightly sticky to the touch. Then transfer the dough to a lightly floured surface and knead for 10 minutes more.
- Transfer the dough back to the bowl and cover with plastic wrap. Let sit for 30 minutes to rise.
- After the dough has risen, preheat your over to 350 degrees F. Transfer your dough back to a lightly floured surface. Divide the dough into 9 equal balls of dough.
- Use 3 balls at a time. Roll the dough balls into strips between your hands. - If you are going to stuff the challah, create a divet in the dough with your fingers down the center of each strip that you are going to fill. - Fill the divet with your selected topping and then pinch the edges of the dough together to close the dough.
- Braid the strips together by placing them side by side. Take the three ends of each of the strips and bring them together while the other ends are angled outwards.
- Bring the outside strip on the right to the middle of the other two strips. Then, bring the outside strip on the left to the middle of the other two. Repeat until you've braided all the way down. Fix the ends of the challah by braiding and tucking the ends underneath the loaf.
- Repeat with the other dough balls.
- Place the challot* on a parchment paper lined tray, ensuring there is about 2 inches between each loaf.
- Cover the loaves with hand towels and let rise for 30 minutes.
- After the dough has risen, place any toppings you are going to use on top.
- Put your trays in the oven. Bake for 20 minutes.
- While your challot are in the oven, create the wash for the top of the challah by mixing equal parts non-dairy milk with maple syrup.
- After the 20 minutes, remove the challah from the oven and wash with the mixture you created. Place them back in the oven for 20-30 more minutes, until golden brown and a fork placed in between the braids comes out clean. Another method you can try is tapping the bottom of the challah and seeing if it sounds hollow.
- Once your challah is done, let it rest on the tray for a few minutes and then transfer to a wire rack to cool. Or, if you find challah as irresistible as me, eat it immediately and burn every taste bud in your mouth (:***
Notes
- Alternatively, you can allow your dough to rise in the fridge overnight after braiding. This allows you to split the process in half so it’s less time all at once and it allows your dough to rise a little longer. The only difference is instead of covering with hand towels, you’ll cover with aluminum foil and put it in the fridge. Then follow the instructions the same way.
- Some fun toppings that I've used in the past include: sprinkles, cookie butter, vegan beef & cheese, rosemary & garlic, apple & cinnamon, cinnamon sugar, and lemon poppyseed. The sky is the limit when it comes to challah flavors - get creative!