Happy Purim from The Challah Blog!

On the Shabbat before Purim, we always get into the spirit a little early and make fun challot.  Here are some of our ideas from past years.

Hamantaschen Challot are an easy and fun way to surprise your guests. Baked upside down, they look like slightly triangular-shaped rolls. But flipped over -- a great surprise!

Okay, so we sometimes make Sprinkle Challah even when it's not Purim, because it's a lot of fun, and kids love it.

By now, you've probably realized how much I love mix-in challot. M&M Challah is just fun, colorful, and easy!

Shabbat Shalom and Purim Same'ah from our bayit to yours!  What's YOUR Purim costume this year?  We're having a Star Wars theme at our synagogue.

Birthday Treat (Anyone still there?)

I promise I'm still around, haverim.  Things have just been a little challenging lately.  We're dealing with some major transitions at Beit Stein, including the start of my doctoral program among others.  We promise, we're still around and still making challah.

But we've just been so uncreative lately.  With the craziness of the holidays and starting a PhD program, plain, basic, delicious regular old challah is all that's been acceptable in our house.  Any ideas for some new recipes?  Request for clarifications on old favorites?  It's TOUGH to make a new recipe every week... failing a few times has taught me NOT to just make new recipes for the heck of it, but make them because I truly want to get creative with challah.

So, bear with us.  Stay tuned.  Don't take us out of your Google Reader yet.  We're still here.  Today is The Hazz's birthday.  Besides a cake and mac n'cheese (which I think he agreed to partially because I like it), he gets sprinkle challah.  Because he's just that awesome.


Shabbat Shalom from our bayit to yours!

The Challah Decorators

This past Friday a friend of mine brought over a few helpers for some extreme challah decorating.

Lots of sprinkles were involved.

Sprinkle Challah for Purim

I can't take credit for thinking this up.  I saw it on Leigh Ann's old blog (she now blogs here - make sure to check her out!) and tried it out last year.  It was a complete failure!  I ended up with a pink, slightly sickly sweet challah.  I pretended it tasted good.  But it really didn't.

So, in honor of Purim, we're bringing back sprinkle/multi-color/funfetti challah.  This year, we're using jimmies (did you know that we don't actually know why sprinkles are called jimmies?).

I started out with my normal old challah recipe. I floured the dough lightly to prevent the colors from running too much. Then, I just dumped on the sprinkles.


Then I just braided as normal.


Before baking, I decided there weren't nearly enough sprinkles, so I added a few more after egg-wash and baked as normal.


While we on vacation last week, the Hazz and I stopped at a paint-your-own-pottery place. I made a Shalom door plate, and the Hazz made a word bubble plate with, "V'ahavta larekha kamokha. (Love your neighbor as yourself.)" While it will probably one day end up on the wall, it made a great display plate!


Here it is in all it's glory!  Yum!


What are YOU doing to celebrate Purim (and extend perhaps extend the holiday like we are)?

A Frelichen Purim! 

PSST: You might want to check out Hamantaschen Challah and M&M Challah, our other Purim-inspired creations!