Challah Lab72 recipes

Challah Lab

Challah: what 72 recipes agree on

The braided egg bread: eggs, oil, honey and water per 100 g of flour.

72 recipes from 40 sites, each reduced to grams and written as baker's percentages: grams of each ingredient per 100 g of flour, so a small recipe and a double batch line up. Below: the typical loaf, how far recipes stray from it, and a page for every recipe with a link to the original.

Recipes

72

from 40 sites

Typical flour

500 g

about 4 cups

Oven

350°F

175°C · median of 63

Bake time

28 min

most 23 to 33 min

The typical loaf of challah

The median of all 72 recipes for each ingredient, scaled to 500 g of flour. No single recipe is exactly this: each line is the middle of its own distribution. “Most recipes” means the middle half, from the 25th to the 75th percentile.

Typical challah recipe in grams, with the range most recipes use
IngredientGrams
FlourThe scale for everything else500 gabout 4 cups
EggMost recipes use 100 to 150 g125 gabout 2 1/2 large eggs
OilMost recipes use 40 to 75 g60 gabout 1/4 cup
SweetenerMost recipes use 48 to 85 g65 gabout 1/3 cup
WaterMost recipes use 165 to 235 g200 gabout 3/4 cup
SaltMost recipes use 8 to 12 g9 g
YeastMost recipes use 6 to 9 g7 g

Bake350°F (175°C) for about 28 minutes.

Volumes are approximate: flour at 125 g a cup, sugar 200 g, butter or oil 225 g, milk and other liquids 240 g, a large egg 50 g.

Every recipe, ingredient by ingredient

Each dot is a recipe, placed by grams of the ingredient per 100 g of flour (100% would be as much as the flour). The shaded band is the middle half of recipes and the line is the median.

  1. Egg

    median 25% · most 20 to 30%

    Eggs and extra yolks give challah its color and richness; the egg wash on top is counted as an extra.

    0%10%20%30%40%50%

    range 10 to 40%

  2. Oil

    median 12% · most 8 to 15%

    Oil rather than butter, traditionally, so the bread is dairy-free.

    0%10%20%30%

    range 4 to 26%

  3. Sweetener

    median 13% · most 9.6 to 17%

    Honey or sugar; sweeter for Rosh Hashanah, less for everyday loaves.

    0%10%20%30%

    range 4 to 28%

  4. Water

    median 40% · most 33 to 47%

    Less water than a lean loaf because the eggs carry liquid too; a firmer dough braids cleanly.

    0%20%40%60%80%

    range 21 to 63%

  5. Salt

    median 1.8% · most 1.5 to 2.3%

    About 1.5 to 2%.

    0%1%2%3%
    Each dot is up to 2 recipes.

    range 0.8 to 2.8%

  6. Yeast

    median 1.4% · most 1.2 to 1.7%

    Instant or active dry yeast for two rises.

    0%1%2%3%4%
    Each dot is up to 2 recipes.

    range 0 to 3.7% · 4% use none

Where recipes disagree

Measured by how far apart the 25th and 75th percentile recipes are. The widest gaps are where the choice of recipe matters most.

  • Oil. The middle half of recipes use 8 to 15% of the flour weight in oil, so a recipe at the 75th percentile has 1.9 times as much as one at the 25th.
  • Sweetener. The middle half of recipes use 9.6 to 17% of the flour weight in sweetener, so a recipe at the 75th percentile has 1.8 times as much as one at the 25th.

Recipes agree most on water and yeast: water 33 to 47%, yeast 1.2 to 1.7% for the middle half.

Oven temperature and time

63 of 72 recipes state an oven temperature, and 47% of those bake at 350°F (175°C). The middle half bake at 350 to 375°F. The other 9 do not say.

  • 350°F30 recipes
  • 375°F21 recipes
  • 400°F4 recipes
  • 325°F3 recipes
  • 425°F2 recipes
  • 450°F2 recipes

67 recipes state a bake time. Taking the middle of any stated range (“55 to 65 minutes” counts as 60), the median is 28 minutes and the middle half bake 23 to 33 minutes.

Temperature and time together

The single most common pairing is 350°F for 30 to 35 minutes, with 7 of the 62 recipes that state both.

Rows: oven °F (°C in gray), every 25°F. Columns: minutes, 5 a column, from the start of each; the middle of a stated range counts. Darker: more recipes, up to 7 in one cell. Outlined: the median, 350°F for 28 minutes. 62 recipes state both. The edge rows and columns also hold the few recipes beyond them.

Recipes to start with

Closest to the typical loaf

Nearest the median on every ingredient at once.

Most egg

Least egg

All 72 challah recipes →

Go deeper

Top sources

  • 11foodnetwork.com
  • 10kingarthurbaking.com
  • 5jamiegeller.com
  • 4chefsimon.com
  • 3tasteofhome.com
  • 2bettycrocker.com
  • 2breadtopia.com
  • 2leitesculinaria.com
  • 2melindastrauss.com
  • 112tomatoes.com
  • 1africanbites.com
  • 1alexandracooks.com

In 5 languages: English 59, French 7, German 3, Italian 2, Spanish 1. Lines in other languages are read in their own units and words, and each recipe page links to the original. 40 sites in all. No site contributes more than 12 recipes.

How the numbers are made

Every ingredient line is converted to grams and grouped (butter and oil count as fat; white, brown and liquid sweeteners as sugar), then divided by the flour weight. That baker's percentage is the only comparison that holds across recipes of different sizes.

95% of the 701 ingredient lines got a weight. 33% of those weights were printed by the source; the rest were converted from cups and spoons with standard densities, so treat single recipes as close, not exact. Frosting, glaze, streusel and other toppings are listed on each recipe page but left out of the percentages.

A recipe outside the plausible range for any ingredient is left out rather than allowed to stretch every chart; it is usually a different dish with the same name or a misread line. Of the pages fetched, 70 were left out: 46 outside the plausible range on some ingredient (egg 20, water 11, salt 5, oil 5, sweetener 4, yeast 1), 12 with a title that names a different dish, 11 with no flour, or none that could be weighed, and 1 duplicate of another page.

Every recipe page links to the original, which is where the method is. Recipe Lab does not republish instructions or photos.