Because it was so cold this past weekend, we decided it was probably a good idea to hunker down at home – but since we didn’t want to waste a perfectly good weekend day, we also used our time to bake.  And this fun, nontraditional challah, adapted from a recipe in the New York Times, was the result!  Challah is a really nice bread because it’s so fluffy inside, and the shape gives it such a fun and interesting appearance plus some really great texture on the outside.  We’ll admit that this definitely isn’t a quick recipe, but it’s also not too, too hard, so you shouldn’t be intimidated.  We’ll walk you through all the steps here.

You’ll need:

• Yeast
• Flour
• Honey
• Olive oil
• 4 eggs

To make this dough, first whisk a teaspoon of yeast into 1/4 cup of warm water until the yeast dissolves.  Stir in 1 1/4 cups of flour, plus 1/2 cup of room temperature water, until you have a gluey mixture.  Push this all to the center of your mixing bowl, cover the bowl in tight plastic wrap, and let rise for 2 hours.

Then in another bowl, whisk together 1/3 cup of honey, 1/3 cup of olive oil, 2 whole eggs and 1 egg yolk.  Add this to the yeast-flour mixture, then measure out another 3 cups of flour and a very large pinch of salt.  Stir everything together until you have a dough, then knead the dough for 10 minutes until it’s very stretchy.  Shape the dough into a ball, place it back in your same bowl from before, sprinkle with a little flour, then cover and let rise for another 2 hours.

When the dough is ready, punch it down and then cut it into two same-sized pieces.

Roll out each piece evenly to a log that’s about 28 inches long and tapered at one end, then dust with flour and line them up side by side.

Twist the two strands together …

… then roll them tightly into a circle, with the tapered ends on the inside, and tuck the other ends underneath.

Place this on a baking sheet, then beat an egg and brush the top with this egg wash.  Cover the dough once more, this time with plastic wrap rubbed with olive oil, and let rise for 2 hours.  Then bake at 350°F for 35 minutes, until the challah is shiny and nicely browned on top but not burned.

If you’ve kept track of those rising times, you’ll see why we said that this isn’t quick – it’s 6 hours total of rising, plus 35 minutes of baking, in addition to mixing and kneading everything.  So don’t start making this when you’re already hungry!  But if you plan for all those rises, you’ll come out the other side with this beautiful and interesting challah loaf, shaped almost like a flower with some great, flaky layers inside.  Those come courtesy of the special method you use at the beginning, letting the yeast rise with some flour, and it makes for an excellent texture inside.  We’re really happy to brag on our loaf here, and we devoured it once it was finally done.  So for now, as we deal with this indoor weather for at least another month, this challah can be an excellent project for your chilly days at home.