Allegra Benitah – aka Challah Mummy – shares her recipe and tutorial to make a Shlissel Challah – a fun traditional challah baked for the first Shabbat after Pesach!
Shlissel challah – history
Some Ashkenazi Jews have a tradition of baking a Shlissel Challah for the first Shabbat after Pesach. Shlissel means “key” in Yiddish, and the challah is usually either key shaped, or has a real key concealed inside. Sometimes, like here, both!
Shlissel challah is considered a segula (lucky charm or good omen) to bring parnassa, meaning livelihood or good fortune. Sefer Hatoda’ah (1978), by Rabbi Eliyahu Kitov, describes traditions for all the Jewish holidays. It states that shlissel challahs “symbolize the key to parnassah held by God.”
Challah Mummy Shlissel Challah
By Allegra Benitah
In the Challah Mummy Kitchen, we have baked our Shlissel Challah in the shape of a key and hidden a real key inside (let’s hope for double the blessings!). We’ve attached a heart-shaped key ring to our Shlissel Challah just for fun!
How to make a Challah Mummy Shlissel Challah
(Scroll down for the challah dough recipe and baking instructions.)
We made our Shlissel Challah using lots of long three-strand plaits, laid out together on our baking paper to make a key shape. We think the best way to make long strips of challah to plait together is as follows. First roll the dough out with a rolling pin to make long and thin flat dough.
Roll out the dough so it’s long and flat and then cut strips with a sharp knife. Plait these together to form long braids of dough.
To make the shlissel challah, we first wrapped our real key up in aluminium foil.
We then placed two long plaits next to each other for the main body of the key. We wound one long plait round in three circles for the detailing at the top of the key.
Our foil-covered key was hidden right in the middle of our Shlissel Challah. It will be discovered once the Challah is cut and shared!
We added three small plaits for the part of the key that would go into a door.
Finally, we coloured a small piece of dough with red colouring. We rolled out the red dough and cut a heart shape out of it using a cookie cutter. We made a thin plait to attach the red heart onto the key like a key ring!
The shaped dough was allowed to rise, then given an egg wash.
Finally, it was baked until golden brown.
Shlissel Challah – a fun tradition!
I hope you enjoyed Allegra’s tutorial. She makes it look so easy!
I hope this has inspired you to join in with this fun tradition, and make a key shaped challah for the Shabbat after Pesach.
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📖 Recipe
Shlissel Challah
Ingredients
- 1.5 kg plain flour (approx.)
- 340 ml of lukewarm water
- 1 portion of fresh yeast (approx. 40g, otherwise 1 tablespoon of active dried yeast)
- 6-8 tablespoons caster sugar plus one more tablespoon to mix in with the yeast
- 2 eggs plus one more egg white for the egg wash
- 1 tablespoon of salt
- 55 ml of sunflower oil
- A few drops of red food colouring for the red heart-shaped key ring!
- Heart-shaped cookie cutter
- A key!
Instructions
- First, pour the lukewarm water into a big mixing bowl, add the extra tablespoon of caster sugar and then carefully dissolve the fresh yeast into the water. Once bubbles start to appear on the surface of the water, pour in about a third of the flour, followed by the two eggs, the rest of the caster sugar, the salt and the oil. Get your hands into the dough and combine the mixture, adding flour little by little as you go, until you get a big ball of dough. You will know when the dough is ready to knead because it shouldn’t stick to your hands any more. You will likely need the rest of the flour to get to this point, but just use what your own dough mixture needs.
- Then sprinkle a clean work surface with flour, place the ball of dough down and knead the dough for 5-10 minutes, adding a bit of flour if it gets too sticky again. Separate a small piece of dough from the big ball of dough, drizzle a little bit of leftover sunflower oil around the big mixing bowl and another small bowl, place the big ball of kneaded dough back inside the big mixing bowl and place the small piece of dough in the small bowl. Add a few drops of red food colouring to the small piece of dough and combine so the dough becomes red. Cover both the large bowl and the small bowl with cling film and leave to rise for about an hour and a half or until it has doubled in size.
- Once the dough has risen, give both the large ball and the small piece of dough a little punch to knock the air back out of it. Place the large ball of dough back on the floured work surface and knead it a little bit, with a bit of flour if needed, so that it’s ready to shape. It is at this point that the blessing over the challah dough should be recited if desired.
- Shape your challah into a key shape (see additional directions and photos). Once you are happy with the shape, cover it with a clean tea towel or cling film and let it rise again for half an hour to one hour. Towards the end of this time, pre-heat your oven to 180°C (350°F) and prepare the egg wash. In the Challah Mummy Kitchen, we prefer using the egg white, instead of the egg yolk, for our egg wash because it makes a slightly lighter brown colour on the outside of the baked challah. Spread the egg wash generously over the challah with a pastry brush. We added a few drops of red food colouring to the last drops of egg wash and spread that on the red heart-shaped key ring so that the red colour would be visible after baking.
- Bake the challah for 20-30 minutes at the bottom of your oven. You may need to cover the challah in foil at around 20 minutes if you feel it is getting a bit too brown and crispy!
Notes
Nutrition
About the Challah Mummy!
Each week in the Challah Mummy Kitchen, my two children suggest a new, fun shape and we make it out of challah. We have made fire engine challah, green turtle challah, blossom tree challah and even helicopter challah, as well as some more sophisticated designs, such as stars and flowers. I also teach Challah Mummy Braiding Workshops so that challah lovers can learn how to make gorgeous challah designs!
Check out all of our unusual and interesting designs on Instagram, challahmummy.wordpress.com or Facebook. Please get in touch at challahmummy@gmail.com if you would like to attend a Challah Mummy Braiding Workshop or have a suggestion for a new challah design.
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Jacqueline Meldrum
I am in awe. I think I would get in a guddle making that even with the step-by-step instructions. Looks fab. Pinned, Stumbled and Flipped 🙂
Helen
Thanks Jacqueline. I’m sure you could manage it 🙂
Jemma
Oh wow! This looks so intricate and detailed to make. Thanks so much for the thorough tutorial. I’d never heard of it before.
Helen
Thanks Jemma. Shlissel challah is a bit obscure but seems to be getting more and more popular. I think it’s a really fun tradition!
Dannii
What a fun looking bread – I bet it’s delicois too. A really detailed step by step tutorial which is always good for baking novices like myself.
Helen
Thanks Dannii! Yes, Challah Mummy’s directions are brilliant, and thorough!