I love baking challah.  Kneading the dough is especially relaxing for me.  It is a comfort when the house is filled with a warming aroma while the challah is in the oven.

So how I could I refuse the Chabad Prospect Heights when they asked me to participate in a challah making workshop?  My focus was to show how to make healthy challah.  The challah I make is always with whole grains, and a small amount of honey instead sugar.

So what is challah anyway?  It is a delicious bread that is eaten on the Sabbath and Festival meals.  (And it also makes great french toast.)  Challah is meant to represent the ‘manna’ or food that came down from the heavens while Jews were wandering the desert.

There are specific rules about Challah and how it is made.  It can only be made from 5 specific grains. These are wheat, spelt, barley, rye, and oat. Traditionally challah is made with white flour but I prefer the whole grains. For the class I made a spelt challah which went over very well. But let’s not forget the gluten intolerant. For this crowd, myself included, I made little oat challah rolls. Oat happens to be the only permissible grain for making challah that does not contain gluten. Yum!

If you would like to bake the spelt or oat challah send me a comment and I will email you the recipes.