For many of you, this post will seem like a total “no-brainer”. You’ve been making your challah ahead and freezing it for years. What’s the big deal?
But for those you, like me, that could never quite figure out how to freeze your challah dough, this post may just be your favorite one ever.
Thanks in large measure to some helpful advice from readers over on the KOAB Facebook wall, I have finally mastered the art of making & freezing challah!
It’s so simple (now that I know how to do it), and it saves a ton of time and money. Make up a big batch of challah dough, freeze the braids, then pull them out whenever you need a fresh challah, but don’t have time to fuss with the dough. (Uh, every Friday night.)
How to Make & Freeze Ahead Challah
Step 1: Make up your regular challah dough recipe – by hand, with a KitchenAid or in the breadmaker. (This is our breadmaker challah recipe, which I have converted to using in our KitchenAid, since our breadmaker went kaput.)
Step 2: Let the dough rise as usual (approximately one hour, until doubled in size).
Step 3: Braid or otherwise turn your lump of dough into a challah (for example – roll out balls and use the pull-apart method).
Step 4: Spray a disposable baking tin with vegetable oil and place the braided challah dough inside. Quickly wrap the dough with plastic wrap, then a second layer of tin foil. The plastic wrap will help to prevent freezer burn. If you plan to bake the challot within a week or two, that should be enough. If you want to freeze for longer, place the foil package inside a freezer bag, squeeze out the air and seal.
Step 5: Place the dough in your freezer and go about your life.
Step 6: Remove foil package(s) from the freezer the day you want to eat your challah (or the day before if this is for Shabbat). Remove tin foil and plastic wrap and loosely cover the dough with a clean dish towel.
Step 7: On your countertop, let the dough fully defrost and have its second rising. This will take up to a few hours, depending on the temperature in your kitchen. If the timing is such that you need to let this happen in your fridge, it will take most of the day and then you should still let the dough come to room temperature before baking.
Step 8: Once fully risen, the dough is ready for baking. Brush with an egg wash and bake as usual. Enjoy!
Do you freeze your challah dough? Or do you prefer to cook it all the way through and then freeze it?
just a note – if you freeze raw challah, check with your Rabbi about making a bracha when seperating challah. Many hold not to make a bracha if the challos are not baked together
Good to know! Thanks!
i bake the challah and then freeze it. when u need it, i just stick it straight into the oven. works great
I think that sounds even easier! Great tip!
Yes, I do the same.
I also bake my challah and then freeze it. I met a woman once who swears that frozen-then-thawed challah has a better texture than freshly baked. Who knows… but it always comes out great when I make it ahead of time and freeze it. (Of course, any excuse for hot-from-the-oven bread is a good one, so there’s no wrong answer here, is there?)
Definitely agree with that!
I bake it and freeze it. I let it defrost in the freezer bag – takes a good 6 hours or so. Tastes completely fresh – sometimes even a bit better.
Btw, we make the braided round challah now for Yom Tov and love it. My 8 year old daughter braids it and we still watch your video every time!
beverlee- i totally agree with that. I’m a big challah baker, and i always think it tastes better when it’s out of the freezer.
Thank you, thank you, thank you! I’ve been looking for an easy guide for years!
I make as many batches (1 batch=enough for 1 entire Shabbos or Yontif) as I have ingredients for at a time. I try to make at least 5 at once, and 3 of my batch size is enough for a bracha. I make a batch in the Kitchen Aid (thank you, Mara, for that awesome Amazon deal!), put it in an oiled bowl, cover that batch with foil or wax paper, then a dish towel. I keep making batches until I’m ready to make a bracha. I cover my giant bowl with the dish towel and make my bracha and separate and burn the separated challah dough. In the mean time, I bag each batch in a gallon-sized ziploc. I freeze the dough in the ziploc. On Thursday night (or erev Yontif) I remove a dough bag from the freezer and let it thaw overnight. In the morning I braid the challohs, and let them rise. I use instant yeast with only one rise. Then I bake as usual. I’ve been doing this for about 10 years, and it works great for me.
I prepared the challah dough Sunday night and let it rise for 2 hours, then froze it in a bowl covered and planning on taking it out Friday morning to braid it then let it rise again and then cook it. Did I do something wrong? Should it come out Okay? Thanks in advance!
Erica, It’s funny for me to read my post from 2012 now. Indeed it sounds like you are doing your dough as I did it 5 years ago. These days, my children have grown up and moved out. I make much smaller amounts of dough now. Like many others who commented here, I bake and freeze my challah. When I was making huge amounts of challah every Shabbos, I didn’t have room in my freezer for all that baked challah. I’m hopeful the frozen dough works out for you!
I also bake my Challah and then freeze it, and this is more convenient for several reasons, among them that my oven is often full on Erev Shabbos/Yom Tov; that it’s one more thing I don’t need to remember to do; and that if I have unexpected company and/or latecomers needing to make HaMotzi on Lechem Mishneh, I can just take more Challah out of the freezer–it defrosts fairly quickly on top of the Cholent crockpot. The Ziploc or Reynolds vacuum-freezer bags are perfect for sealing fresh Challah!
Thank you for this!!! I need to make my RH challah ahead of time, but I wasn’t sure if I freeze the dough or the challah.
I think I’ll bake, then freeze, and then reheat in the oven. That seemed to be the majority vote. I hope the raisins hold up well!
For those of you that freeze the baked challah – what time/temp would you suggest reheating it at?
I reheat at 350. HTH.
we just put on blech!
This post is perfect! I’m new at baking challah and found I had no idea what to do with all the dough and with it just being me, I didn’t want to bake all the bread. I wasn’t sure if I could freeze it so this just helped me out so much! Thank you!!!
Happy to help! Hope it turns out well!
Because I, too, am still single I split my challah dough into loaves and knots. This way I am ready in case I have guests but also don’t waste if I end up dining solo. I bake and freeze knots into three packs so as to have two whole rolls to make Motzi at dinner and at lunch (so long as I don’t love them too much!) with a roll left intact for Seudah shlishit.
Good idea about the knots instead of a whole loaf!
Sounds great…I am new at baking challah…any suggestions for kind of flour? I will probably bake and then freeze.
Do I remove from freezer and let baked challah defrost and then reheat it at 350 or do I take from freezer and immediately
bake challah frozen?
I’ve experimented with both, and in the end, I prefer to bake it all the way thru, then freeze, defrost and reheat. If it’s not all the way defrosted, you can still reheat. It’s so yummy – fresh out of the oven!
Thank you so much. This actually works!!!
Hello…have I had a day. I’m new and I baked challah for the first time as mentioned above to bring for Chanukah and I really need some help. I used Glick’s high gluten flour and Premium Star yeast and the recipe that I had I thought had good directions but may be not or I did something wrong. The dough took 3 1/2 hours to rise since the recipe said to double in size and then punch down which is what I did, braided and let it rise 1/2 hour more before baking at 350 degrees for 35 and then another 10 minutes.
I used 4 cups of flour per the recipe for 4 challah and mixed ingredients by hand and kneaded for 8 minutes. The challah looked like an Entemann’s long cake, hardly rose. It tastedyummy fine and I have to tak e to someone’s house. I can take two although I am embarrassed. Can anyone offer any suggestions and maybe a simple recipe to help get me started in the right direction again. I have a bread machine but not sure how to use for challah since there are no directions. I do own a hand mixer. Thank you.
My favorite recipe appears here: http://bit.ly/1MBgsSr It’s simple and not too sweet and always fluffs like a dream. My only tweaks over the years have been to mix dry ingredients very well and, separately, blend wet ingredients very well before adding the two to the proofed yeast. My other hint is to skip the second rise. It happens in the oven anyway and gives the braid that puffy look you’d expect to see on a magazine cover.
thank you. We always use two loaves for each Sabbath. I have found the best recipe and it makes 4 loaves at a time. I have tried to cut the recipe in half and i just cant get it right. my husband is very fussy about eating frozen bread so I’m going to try the freezing of the dough. although I do have a couple of people who enjoy their weekly loaf of bread from me, it would nice to have some ready to go on some Fridays when I have to work half the day! Since I started making the bread, its hard to go back to store bought on those weeks.
how do I wrap the baked challah to freeze in Saran Wrap