Challah

I make homemade bread occasionally. It's usually  big all day kinda thing because that's what bread is.... time consuming. My bread weakness lies with Challah, which is egg bread. It's soooo good. Add any soft creamy cheese and it gets better. Last year I made this bread following a recipe from Smitten Kitchen and it took hours and hours and hours. Actually I started making it at a friends house and about 6 hours later I had to take the bread dough home to finish it. There is nothing quick about making bread.

Then the other day I was reading a post on Ivory Hut about bread she had made using the book, Artisan Bread in 5 Minutes A Day.  Seriously, I thought the writers must have been smoking some Ivory because bread in 5 minutes a day is ca-raaaazy. Then the other day Ivory Hut posted a Challah recipe from the same book. There's my weakness and I couldn't take it so today I tried the recipe.

It was so easy it's impossible. No joke. I mixed all the ingredients in my Kitchen Aid heavy duty mixer but it's a very moist dough so you could easily do it by hand if you don't have a mixer. Not only that but it did take only about five minutes to mix it all, no kneading required. Then you let it sit... on the counter.. or in the fridge, wherever.. .doesn't matter.. until you're ready to cook it. How hard is that?

One recipe makes 4 different 1 lb loaves. Let's just say that two adults and two small children ate two lbs. of bread tonight and could have gone for three if I hadn't wrapped it up and placed it in a safe place. Did I take a picture? of course not! We were too busy eating! We know our priorities. Food over cameras any day.

The recipe for challah can be found on Ivory Hut's blog here

The book's website can be found here

Now for you gluten free friends who just think that this whole entire blog entry is a cruel joke.... The writers of the book also have a new book out, Healthy Bread in Five Minutes a Day, and guess what? It has gluten free recipes.  Because of the struggles I've seen my dad have in trying to live a life with Celiac's disease (gluten allergy) and because one of my friends that means the worlds to me is having to adapt to this lifestyle right now, any one that thinks of those with gluten intolerence, has my utmost respect. Yes, I know that sentence was a huge run on but I'm trying to hurry and get done because there is a screaming baby in the next room and a daddy callin' my name! I'm not proof reading or spell checking! I'm just running to feed her!