Our Favorite Challah

I think I speak for all my colleagues when I say that we occasionally doubt our ability to add value to a cooking technique. But challah was the assignment that really gave me pause.

That’s partly because the enriched, glossy braid is a cultural heavyweight. More than just a fixture at Ashkenazi Jewish holiday tables, it’s a biblically significant bread steeped in age-old rituals, symbolism, and strong opinions. When I polled a few well-versed colleagues and experts about what qualities challah should have, I received a flurry of disparate answers: The crumb should be fluffy or densely chewy. It should taste rich and sweet (acclaimed food writer Mimi Sheraton once described challah as “a brioche-like confection that falls just this side of cake”) or only slightly so. It should have raisins—or definitely not have raisins.

There’s also the fact that countless challah recipes have been published, and even more get passed through the diaspora via word of mouth and muscle memory. So I wasn’t sure what I—someone who really enjoys challah but didn’t grow up making it—could contribute to the conversation.

But as it turned out, my inexperience was an asset. When I shaped and baked a few loaves to familiarize myself with the process, I zeroed in on challenges that might not faze a seasoned challah baker. For example: the relationship between the workability of the dough and the texture of the baked bread. Moist doughs sagged and stuck together, making messy braids but resulting in a soft, tender crumb. Recipes that tried to solve the problem produced drier, firmer doughs that