Challah

For a couple years now I've been preparing a challa for Fridays that always turns out gorgeous, but is a bit dry for my taste, and never lasts more than 36 hours...which is ok if we host a lot of people, but leads to french toast overload if it was just the 3 of us for dinner....too much left over stale bread!
My friend Beth gave me a recipe that I am IN LOVE with. The bread lasts just about a week, and you make four loaves worth of dough at once, what you don't use immediately, you can freeze for later!

Challah Bread

• 3 cups warm water
• 1 1/4 cup sugar
• 3 packages of active dry yeast
• 3 eggs
• 4 tsp salt
• 1 cap vanilla
• drizzle of honey
• 11 cups of flour
• 2 1/2 to 3 1/4 cups of veggie oil

Mix sugar and warm water; add yeast and let activate 3-4 minutes.

Add eggs, salt, vanilla, and honey. Mix and wait 5 minutes.

Add oil and flour and knead (I use a stand mixer with dough hook, but Beth always does it by hand) for about 10 minutes or until it is a bit springy (but not tacky) to the touch.

Cover with a moist towel for 2 hours until it doubles in size.

Divide into 4 loaves, braid what you will use, place on a cookies sheet with parchment or a silicone baking sheet and let rise 90 minutes covered with a moist towel. Place the extra dough in airtight containers (tupperware type or zip baggies) in the freezer. Alternately, if you were preparing this the night before, you could refrigerate the next day's bread in airtight containers (pre-braid).

When the loaf is ready to bake, brush with a mixed egg, sprinkle with sesame, poppy or sunflower seeds, and place in an oven that has been pre-heated to 350 F. Cook for about 30 minutes until golden. Remove from baking sheet and let cool on a rack.

If you are cooking bread that has previously been frozen or refrigerated, you can let defrost overnight in the fridge and then remove from fridge and let warm to room temp for about 1 hour before you braid.