Egg Bread

This recipe is fun to make, not a crazy rise time considering it's a yeast bread, low in fat and yummy. You can make it a variety of ways and switch up the recipe as you see fit. It's basically a passover bread loaf (Challah) only less kosher. If you want to render it Challah-worthy, substitute the milk for 1 1/4 cups water and the butter for pareve margarine.

EGG BREAD AKA QUASI-KOSHER CHALLAH!

Prep: 45 minutes Rise: 1 1/2 hours total
Bake: 25-30 minutes Makes: 1 swank loaf
Oven: 375°


4 3/4 cups all-purpose flour or bread flour (I was low on all-purpose so did most with bread)
1 package active dry yeast (or 2 teaspoons)
1 1/3 cups milk
3 tablespoons sugar
3 tablespoons butter
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 eggs
1 egg yolk
2 teaspoons or more small seeds or nuts of your choosing. I used pine nuts.


1. In a large mixing bowl stir together 2 cups of the flour and the yeast; set aside. Me, I put them in the bowl of my kitchenaid standing mixer. In a medium saucepan heat and stir milk, sugar, butter and salt just until warm and butter almost melts. Add the milk mixture to your dry mixture along with the eggs. Beat it with your paddle attachment like I did, or use a handheld mixer and beat on low to medium speed for 30 seconds, stopping a couple times to scrape the sides of the bowl down. Then beat on high speed for 3 minutes. Using a wooden spoon, stir in 2 cups of flour or as much as you can.

2. Turn dough out onto a lightly floured surface. Knead in enough of the remaining flour to make a moderately stiff dough that is smooth and elastic (6 to 8 minutes total). You don't need to make it a workout, just relax and work the dough. Shape dough into a ball. Place in lightly grased large bowl, turning once to coat the bread dough ball's surface. Cover with some plastic wrap; let rise in a warm place until double in size (about 1 hour). Now...I live in Washington. And today was cold, the house takes a while to heat up. But you cannot have your dough rise in a cool place, it needs warmth. My trick is that my bedroom (or as I call it, "The Fortress of Solitude") is always warm. So I tucked it under my thick blankets on my bed and let it rise there. It was safe and warm enough. It worked, I recommend it if your house isn't easy to heat.



3. You will know if your bread is ready to rise if it looks like my awesome bed-ridden-risen bread as above AND if when you poke a finger about 1/3 of an inch into its surface that the indent stays. Then you take your dough and punch it down. This also has the maddeningly satisfying sensation of showing dough your haymaker so to speak. Epic! Divide the dough into thirds. Or, if you were me, you didn't read the right hand footnotes on the recipe until much later and ended up dividing the dough into two pieces. Both will work, but mine ended up like a twist. Cover them, loosely with a kitchen towel is fine. Let them rest for 10 minutes. Roll each third into an 18-inch-long rope. Place ropes on a greased large baking sheet 1 inch apart.


4. Now you will braid the ropes. Make sure you start your braid in the middle and do it loosely. If you braid it too tightly it will get all mucked up in the baking and it's gonna get ginormous, so let it be loosely braided. Start at the middle, work your way to the ends and pinch and tuck the braid ends under themselves a little. Cover the pan and loaf loosely and let it rise again in a warm place until nearly double, about 30 minutes. Brush the braid with 1 beaten egg yolk to coat the crust of the loaf. This is going to give it a nice golden brown color, make it shiny and give it oomph. Sprinkle the loaf with your seed of choice.



5. Bake in a 375 degree oven for 15 to 17 minutes, then cover loosely with foil for the last 10 minutes of baking. Remove from the pan and cool on wire racks.