Challah!

Challah is great. If you're not familiar, it is an egg bread typically eaten by Jews as Shabbat commences on Friday evening. It has a lot of yeast, a little sugar, and sometimes it can have raisins inside and often has sesame or poppy seeds on top. It is usually braided (there are variations) and when well made it is light and sweet. You always use an egg wash on top. Mine are a little dense, but tasty. I used Joan Nathan's recipe from Jewish Cooking in America, and her recipe has them bake a little too long for my oven. I think this is a 25-minute bread. It's a wonderful book though, and for a historical look at what American Jews eat it is very interesting. I'm going to dial it back a little next time, I think they'll turn out better.