Here’s my go-to Friday afternoon vegan challah recipe. My recipe makes enough dough for two medium-sized aromatic rosemary, thyme, and garlic challahs, but of course you can cut the ingredients in half for one loaf.

Ingredients

6– 6 and 1/2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
1/2  cup sugar
4 and 1/2  teaspoons of yeast
2 and 1/2 tsp salt
1/4 cup  vegetable oil (I always use avocado)
1 cup and two Tbsp water
2 Tbsp maple syrup

Mix together 6 cups of flour, sugar, yeast, and salt in a large bowl.

Add the avocado oil and the cup of water and mix in another medium sized bowl.  You can either add the dough to a food processor, slowing adding in water and oil mixture and run at the lowest speed for about 5 minutes until the dough has formed.

Or- you can knead by hand. Kneading by hand takes about 10 minutes but I find the challah tastes better this way.

Once the dough is formed, take your dough ball and knead in the remaining half cup of flower. (Use your judgment, you may need more or less flour). Form into two separate balls for the two separate challah.

I lightly coat my two dough balls with avocado oil and place next to one another in a large mixing bowl. Wrap the bowl with plastic wrap and let the dough rise for 1 to 2 hours. I like to let my dough rise for 2 hours.

After the dough has risen, preheat oven to 375 degrees and separate each loaf into 3 separate equal size pieces for a traditional 3-braid challah. I find that garlic is the secret ingredient to this recipe.  Mince 3 cloves of garlic, and generously add fresh garlic, rosemary, and thyme into the braids. Then braid – right over left, right over left and add maple syrup to the top of the braids to substitute for the egg.

Bake for 30 to 40 minutes depending on how browned you want the bread to be. I like to bake for 30 minutes because I like softer bread and I find it lasts a day or so longer.

That’s it! There you go- you have beautiful rosemary garlic challahs!  Eat as is, or serve with your favorite spreads.