Battle Challah: The Jew vs. The Goy

Two things I've been wanting to do: 1) make bread and 2) make something from the very inspiring smittenkitchen.com. Why not knock out two birds with one giant piece of challah? Hahahachallah joke.

here is smitten kitchen's version: (sorry, picture NOT forthcoming since the photo is licensed through Getty Images.)

and mine (not ours, which I'll soon explain):

One reason I chose this particular recipe is because smitten kitchen understands the meaning of no dishwasher. Go ahead without the KitchenAid, Deb says. And that's exactly what I did.

I was also worried about kneading it properly, but again, smitten kitchen was reassuring--as long as you are folding, pushing out and turning, you'll be fine.

After that, I set it in a greased bowl and

covered it with Cling Wrap, which is basically Glad's huge, ongoing joke (the only thing this wrap clings to is itself):

As we "wait" for it to rise for an hour, can I just tell you how much cooler organic eggs are than regular eggs? Each organic egg is slightly different in color, yolk size and personality. Regular eggs are the EXACT same from egg to egg. They are weird little egg clones.

(Also, cleaning up the dough, ruined my sponge. FYI.)

One hour later, my dough hadn't risen as much as I thought it would, but it stayed down when I pressed it with two lightly floured fingers, which according to smitten kitchen means that it is good to go, or

...good to get punched back down and then left alone to rise for another half hour! (If you don't show the dough who is boss early and often, it will never rise and it will never respect you.)

At this point, Matt comes into the kitchen and asks if he can help. So, we decided to each make a loaf. Begin BATTLE CHALLAH: the jew vOYses the goy. On the left you'll see Matt's (the jew), and on the right is mine (goy).

And here, mine is the sesame seed, and Matt's is plain.

I think the winner is obvi.

Matt swears he has never made challah, but the second he touched that dough, there was a strange look in his eye. We both knew he was chaneling something, something God-given. And his prize for winning the battle? He got to make two more loaves, which turned out to be even MORE beautiful than his first.

Could this be the biggest success to date? I don't know, but the apartment never smelled better. There should be a perfume called CKchallah.

Epilogue: Three of these beautiful loaves were sold at our the No Cookie Left Behind charity bake sale. The one I made was eaten by us. I want more challah, and I wanted it five minutes ago.