The recipe is based on Jewish Challah bread or as we like to call it in Poland – Chałka  by Eric Treuille

 This bread is so very yummy and so very soothing for the soul.
By Izabela Bielnicka, Initiate Woman Shaman Priestess Healer and creator of Femi Joga in Poland.

Ingredients:

  • 3 tsp dry yeast or 1.2 oz yeast in a cake form (I used yeast in a cake form)
  • ¾ cups lukewarm water
  • 3 ¾ cups bread flourOLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA
  • ½ tsp salt
  • 2 Tbsp honey or sugar (I used sugar)
  • 2 beaten eggs
  • 4 Tbsp unsalted butter, melted
  • 1 egg yolk beaten with 1 Tbsp of water for the glaze
  • 15 apricots chopped (or other dried fruit of your liking)
  • Optional: poppy seeds or sesame seeds for decoration

Making the Bread

  • Sprinkle or crumble the yeast into the lukewarm water, add sugar. Let stand for 5 minutes and stir to dissolve the yeast.
  • Mix flour with salt.
  • Add enough of flour into the dissolved yeast to form a soft paste. Cover the bowl with dish towel and let stand for about 20-30min. The dough started will rise.
  • Add remaining flour, sugar, beaten eggs, melted butter and apricots. Mix all the ingredients.
  • Knead until smooth, shiny and elastic for about 10 min.
  • Place the dough in a bowl, cover and let stand until doubled in size – about 2 hours. In my case, the kitchen was fairly warm and the dough took about 1 hour to double in size.
  • Punch down.
  • Divide the dough into 3 equal pieces. Roll each to form a long rope. Connect them at one end and start braiding.
  • Place the braided bread on the buttered baking sheet. Cover with towel and let rise until doubled in size – about 45min. For me it took 30 min.
  • Brush with the egg glaze.
  • Bake in the preheated oven (350˚F) for about 40min, until golden and sounds hollow when tapped on the bottom. Cool on a wire rack.

The bread turned out to be so yummy that it disappeared in just a moment :) Enjoy!

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