Round Holiday Challah

Braided dough with eggnog and sesame seeds:

This recipe is from a lovely book called In the Jewish Tradition by Judith B. Fellner.

I am in Miami right now, so this morning my mother-in-law and I mixed up 1 and 1/4 c flour, 1/4 c honey and 1 1/2 t salt in a large bowl. We then added 1/2 c olive oil, 1 c hot tap water, then we beat the mixture together for 2 minutes. Then we added 3 eggs and 1 egg white, 1/2 flour and beat it again for another 2 minutes. Then we stirred in another 4 cups (approximately) of flour to make soft dough, which we then kneaded for about 10 minutes.

We then placed the dough in a greased bowl and covered it with plastic wrap for about an hour (or two). It doubled in size at this point, so then I punched it (punch! punch!) and divided it into three pieces, which I braided. Then we placed it on a greased cookie sheet and painted it with egg yolk and sesame seeds for another hour.

Finally, we baked it at 375 degrees for about 35 minutes. It is beautiful! Seriously, this should win a contest.

And here are a few other Miami photos. You may have heard about the flooding the occurred last week during a rainstorm (we got something like 12 inches in three hours). Here is one view:


This is Hootie, a cockapoo and one of the sweetest, most endearing animals I have ever met. I spent a lot of time with Hootie this past week and he was soooooo hard to leave!


Finally, here is one of Jake and Gabe (Jake's twin brother) and I behind the bar at the famous Joe's Stone Crab. Jake and I got there hours before dinner to put our names down so there wouldn't be a long wait once more of the family arrived. And Joe's had the best creamed spinach I've ever eaten in my life.


We also took a trip out to the Everglades again and spotted quite a few alligators - those pics are forthcoming!