Baking Adventures-Challah

Yesterday, the school had a day off due to a national holiday here in Guatemala!!!!  So, my roommate and I decided to spend all day lounging at home.  We played games and read but this got a little boring around 3 o'clock in the afternoon.  So, we were trying to decide what to do next.  I was searching through my recipes to try and came across a website called "The Second Breakfast."  Being a big Lord of the Rings fan, we began looking through her recipes and came across a bread called Challah.  Now, I'm no baker so I clicked on it to check it out and saw the most amazing-looking bread in my life!!!  We just had to make it!!!!  Here's our journey in the kitchen.

This is our first batch of dough.  We followed the directions but after 30 minutes of letting the dough rise, it was not budging!!!!  It still looked like this.

 

We already started the strawberry filling, which turned out SOOO yummy!

Since the first batch wasn't rising, we decided to set it aside and bake it anyway with a second batch. This is my roommate Kayla moving the sticky dough.

 

On to round two!  We decided to wait a little longer on the activating the yeast part.  So here I am, encouraging it to activate.  It just took a lot longer then the blog-lady said.

This time, it worked!!!  Here is our braided Challah with strawberry filling.  The braid isn't as pretty as it could have been but it tasted amazing!

Remember the first batch that didn't rise?  Well, turns out, it was rising!!!  Although it took double the time to rise, it grew and grew and grew!!!  So, we made ANOTHER Challah without filling.

 

I think I really enjoy the process of making bread although I might some more practice.  But I'm more then willing to practice more if it keeps turning out this tasty. 

Also, have I mentioned that I have the best roommate.  So, if this bread wasn't already amazing, Kayla made french toast out of the Challah with strawberry sauce.  This was the best breakfast I've had in a long time!!!!