This may be the most beautiful bread I've ever baked.
I'd written off challah for a long time because it looked a bit too complicated, but today I finally made the leap, and boy am I proud. My desire to overcome my challah fear was spurred on by two factors. One the fact that Peter got me The Smitten Kitchen Cookbook for Christmas and this recipe particularly stood out in all its sweet, salty glory (plus, there were really cool-looking weaving instructions!) The other is that as of late my sister and her architecture cohort has become obsessed with challah. The third fact, which I'm going to sort of nest as a subheading under facts one and two, is the amount of immensely rewarding "Holla!" jokes you can invent before/during/after making it.*
