Challah Bread! Mmmmm

This is a fancy-dancy looking bread you can make when guests come over for dinner.....or on a Wednesday night while your husband is in a late study group meeting. It is again, like most of my recipes on here, simple to make - and does not require hours like some yeast breads. I wanted to impress my husband with it's cool braided design and it did the trick. He thought it looked all store bakery - I smiled :) This is the original "Egg Bread", but with 2 modifications, making it a "Challah"...which supposedly is a Jewish origin bread, traditionally made during holidays. Even though it looks like a lot of hard crust it is in fact very soft and moist. The brushing of egg yolk before baking gives it that nice golden look. It was especially yummy with butter, honey or Honey-Butter mixture. Mmmmmm Enjoy~

Recipe:
4 3/4 to 5 1/4 Cup All Purpose Flour
1 package of active dry yeast (or 1 Tbs yeast from jar)
1 1/4 cups Water
3 Tbs Sugar
3 Tbs of Margarine
1/2 tsp salt
2 Eggs

1. In a large mixing bowl stir together 2 cups of flour and the yeast; set aside. In a medium saucepan heat and stir water, sugar, margarine and salt until just warm (margarine starts to melt). Add water mixture to flour mixture along with eggs. Beat with electric mixer on low to medium speed for 30 seconds (or stir with fork/wooden spoon till all ingredients combined). Now add in as much of the remaining flour as possible. Don't over do it though! I believe I only used a little over 4 cups.

2. Knead enough of the remaining flour to make a moderately stiff dough that is smooth and elastic ( 6-8 mins) Shape dough into a ball and place in a lightly greased bowl, turning once to grease all sides. Cover; let rise in a warm place until double in size ( about 1 hour).

3. Punch dough down. Divide dough into thirds. Cover; let rest 10 mins. Roll each third into an 18-inch of so long rope. Place ropes on a greased large baking sheet, 1 inch apart; braid ropes. (now, I did not have a "large" baking sheet, so I braided my ropes on the counter and transferred it to my parchment paper, making a rainbow shape to fit on the sheet. ) cover, let rise in a warm place until nearly double (about 30 mins) ----brush braid with 1 beaten egg yolk (*gasp* I don't have a brush!....just use your hand! I would grab some yolk and just smear it across my bread....wash your hands before and after though! gross! :) ---sprinkle bread with sesame seeds and/or poppy seed.

(I had "rope" that was longer than the others...I cut it into 3 more little ropes and made a small braided bread-stick...hehe waste not want not!)

4. Bake at 375F for 25-30 mins -- or until bread sounds hollow when you tap the top...cover with tin foil if it is not done cooking and you don't want the bread to get to brown. My only took 22 mins to bake. Enjoy your awesome looking masterpiece!

(after baking)

Yumminess!

*Cocoa Cats*

There is more than one way to skin a cat.... a cookie cat that is! That is exactly what Carter and I made this afternoon; some cute cocoa kitties! I was actually going to make a traditional Christmas Scandinavian treat tonight, but lacked one of the ingredients - so I perused the book and thought these looked fun- (Cats are one of Carter's favorite animals...) - They were super super simple to make and had minimal ingredients. They came out soft and moist, with a rich cocoa taste. I used some frosting from cookies I made the other month, that I had stored in the freezer (thus the blue). Carter kept pointing and say/signing Cat! Cat! (we do sign language with him) It was so darn cute. It was a hit with Don and Carter~ Success! Have fun making these critters (idea: use orange frosting for Halloween time! )

(I had some dough left over, so I made little paws! hehe)

Recipe:

• 1/3 Cup Shortening
• 1/3 Cup Butter (softened)
• 3/4 Cup Sugar
• 1/3 Cup unsweetened cocoa powder
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1 Egg
• 2 Tbs Milk
• 1 tsp Vanilla
• 1 3/4 Cup all-purpose flour

1. In a large mixing bowl, beat or stir the shortening and butter together till creamy and smooth. Add sugar, cocoa powder, and baking powder. Beat until combined. beat in egg, milk and vanilla until creamy. Add flour and stir till fully combined.

2. Now the recipe calls for chilling the dough for about an hour or 2 for it is easy to handle. I decided to just add a little extra flour to make the dough slightly tougher and just roll out and shape. ....So your choice! :) Roll the dough and using a cat cutter, cut out the animals. Now, another side road I took...I did not have a cat cutter! haha...but I did have a large circle. So I cut out large circles and then took a knife and cut out a triangle on top for an ear then line and another triangle for the other ear. Then just chiseled off the edges to make triangle shaped cheeks. :) It worked...

(uncooked kitties)

(cooked kitties)

3. Place cookies in a baking sheet, (parchment paper!) Bake cookies at 375F for about 7-9 mins. (or until edges are firm and bottom is light) 7 mins worked perfectly for my "cats". ....Take the *cats* out and allow to cool fully. Then use your icing skills to create the purr-fect feline faces! I used my icing recipe found in my previous post for black belt cookies

Don and Carter approved! They both gobbled them up..and, of course, a cat wouldn't be complete without a large glass a milk by their side. Yum Yum....

however: I would have liked them more if they were ginger, and not cocoa. I ate one. That was enough for me!