Just in time for autumnal holiday celebrations, here’s our favorite recipe for sourdough challah that includes apples and spice. You can make this delicious seasonal variation of traditional challah with either diced apples or grated apples. We’ve provided instructions for both versions, though both are tasty! This recipe is long-fermented for optimal health, making this rich sourdough apple challah a mom-approved treat. 
Challah is a traditionally Jewish bread served each Sabbath and during holidays. It’s meant to symbolize the manna that fell from heaven to feed the Israelites during their exodus in the desert.
You don’t have to be Jewish to enjoy this rich, egg bread, especially when it’s lovingly made by friends and family. You can toss in seasonal add-ins to tailor your challah for each holiday and time of year.
More Seasonal Recipes for Later:
Making Challah Sourdough
If you’re new to the benefits of sourdough baking, I suggest you read a few of the following posts to familiarize yourself with the process.
Sourdough Bread Beginner Recipe
Sourdough Discard Sandwich Bread
Healthy Bread & Naturally Leavened Sourdough
- Don’t worry – sourdough bread is just bread. It’s flour, salt, leaven (sourdough), and water. That’s it!
We choose to ferment all our homemade baked goods with sourdough to help our bodies more easily digest the grains in these recipes. Plus, sourdough breads are so tasty!
All you have to do to make sourdough apple challah is to add apples and spice. Easy peasy.
To keep track of your sourdough recipes, as well as ferment times and baking details, please join our newsletter family and receive our super simple Sourdough Worksheets!
Sourdough Apple Challah
What makes this sourdough challah unique is the addition of fall apples and spice, with a touch of sweetness. Challah is usually made with honey and egg, giving it a slightly sweet and deep flavor. This recipe adds a bit of raw or coconut sugar and spice to sweeten the bread just a bit more to make it a true treat.
Sourdough Apple Challah
Ingredients
Initial Ferment
- 8 Cups Organic White Flour May sub out a few cups for wheat flour.
- 2 tsp. Sea Salt
- 1 Cup Sourdough Starter
- 1 Cup Warm Water Filtered is best.
- 6 Large Eggs
- 1/3 Cup Honey
- 1/2 Cup Melted Butter Olive or avocado oil is great, too.
Apple & Spice Add-Ins
- 1/4 Cup Raw or Coconut Sugar May use other sugar.
- 1 Tbsp. Cinnamon
- 1 tsp. Nutmeg
- 1/4 tsp. Cloves
- 3 Small Apples, Diced
Egg Wash
- 1 Fresh Egg
- Splash Cold Water
- Dash Sea Salt
Instructions
Initial Ferment
- Mix 8 cups of flour and 2 tsp. of sea salt in a bowl.
- In a separate bowl, mix 1 cup of starter, 1 cup of water, and six eggs. Mix thoroughly.
- In a small saucepot, melt the 1/2 cup of butter. Remove from heat and stir in the 1/3 cup of honey until smooth. Cool to room temperature.
- Add the starter mixture and the slightly cooled butter mixture to the flour mixture. Stir to incorporate.
- Using your hands or a stand mixer, mix the dough until smooth and uniform. You aren't really kneading as with traditional bread; it's more like you're smoothing and shaping it into a ball.
- Replace in the bowl and cover with a lid. Place the bowl in a warm place to ferment for at least 6 hours.*
Rolling & Adding Inclusions
- Finely dice 3 small apples. No need to peel them. Add 1/4 cup sugar and the spices, and mix well. Cover and set aside to sweat the apples to dry them out a bit for better baking.
- Remove the dough and cut it into equal halves. Place one half back in the covered bowl to stay moist. Split the remaining half into four equal pieces. Place them on a counter that's been wetted down a bit to prevent sticking and roll the dough into a rectangle about 12" long.
- Roll out each quarter of dough into long, wide rectangles. Pour off the sugar water that's collected in the apple bowl and use a slotted spoon to spread the sugar mix onto each rectangle.
- Starting from the far, horizontal edge, begin to roll each rectangle up and over itself to enclose the diced apples inside the dough. Roll the strand gently to seal it and to lengthen it to about 18”. If you see apples poking out, shove them back in and seal up the dough. Set each completed strip aside on a flour-dusted or water-dampened surface.
Shaping & Baking the Challah
- Place two rolls on a parchment-lined jelly roll pan (rimmed baking sheet), running parallel to each other. Place the third strand over the top of the first parallel strand, and under the bottom of the other. Place the last strand under the top of the first parallel strand, and over the top of the other. This will have, in essence, woven a pattern something like a tic-tac-toe board, as Tori quips.
- You should now have something that vaguely resembles a dough spider, with eight feet sticking out all around the center weave. Keep that center as tight was you can as you proceed. Taking each foot in turn and moving clockwise, place the first foot over the foot next to it. Lay the original foot down on the board and pick up the foot you just crossed. Take that foot and cross it over the foot next to it. Lay that foot down and pick up the one you just crossed.
- Repeat this process until all the feet have been crossed. You should be able to see the pattern now and a round, braided loaf should be the result. Don't stess over this too much. It will pretty much bake up looking nice even if you don't get it perfect.
- Using slightly damp fingers, tuck the remaining twisted ends under the challah until you have a plump, round loaf. Place on a parchment lined baking sheet and cover. Allow the loaf to rise another 30-60 minutes, or until a fingertip pressed into the dough results in an indentation that stays in place (rather than bouncing back).
- Preheat the oven to 350°F/176°C. Prepare the egg wash by beating the egg, water, and salt together well. Use a pastry brush to place a thin layer of egg wash over the top of the bread. Be sure to get the cracks, but don’t soak the dough.
- Bake for 45-55 minutes, or until a thermometer inserted into the dough reads 190°F/88°C. Allow to rest for 10 minutes and then tear into it to serve hot with butter. Or allow to cool completely and slice.
Notes
Shaping Sourdough Apple Challah Round Loaf
Don’t be intimidated by the number of steps for rolling and shaping sourdough apple challah in a round loaf. Just take each step, one at a time, and be sure to drain off the apple liquid before you lay the diced apples onto the dough. 
Roll and tuck the apples into the dough carefully. Don’t roll the dough too thin or you’ll have apples breaking through and spilling out.
Don’t overthink to weaving process! Have confidence, take the dough in hand, be the boss. It will look gorgeous!
Brush with an egg wash before you bake to help the crust turn gorgeous and golden.
Sourdough Apple Challah Notes
Here are just a few things to think about before making this recipe for sourdough apple challah.
You can adjust the level of sweetness by adjusting the kind of sugar you use. For example, coconut sugar is much less sweet than something like raw sugar.
You can also switch out the honey for maple syrup. Or you can remove the honey and replace it with granulated sugar. You will need to adjust the water in the recipe by about 1/2 cup.
While we’re on the subject of moisture in sourdough bread recipes, it’s important to know that it can be relative. The moisture in your dough can be effected by the humidity of the air in your kitchen, to kind of liquid you’re using in the recipe, and the kind of flour you’re using.
- This is why it’s super important to practice making sourdough so that you learn what properly hydrated bread dough looks like. With practice, you’ll be able to see and feel when the dough is too wet, too dry, or just right.
I prefer to being with slightly less water than the recipe calls for and mix the dough by hand so that I can feel the texture. My hands will tell me even better than my eyes will when the dough is silky, maleable, and not too dried out.
- If you’re combining ingredients for your sourdough apple challah in a stand mixer, watch for the dough to start clearing the sides of the bowl. It will begin to stick together and form a ball, even if the bottom of the dough is still sticking.
Apple Challah = Inclusions
Anytime you add an ingredient to your sourdough bread it’s called an inclusion. This just means something you’ve included in the dough.
- Inclusions can slow down the cook time because they add mass to the dough, but they’re usually worth it!
If you’re adding lots of herbs like rosemary and basil, be careful not to add too many. Both those herbs are anti-bacterial, which can lengthen the ferment time because they’re constantly fighting against the sourdough itself.
Apples are dense because they’re high in fiber and carbohydrates. If the apple chunks are too large going into the dough, they can cause the center of the challah to remain doughy because they take longer to cook through.
However, if you properly diced the apples, they will be small enough to cook through without interferring with the quality of the loaf.
- If I’m in a hurry, I simply grate the apple and spread it out with the spice and sugar as I do with my sourdough apple cinnamon rolls.
Both options are equally tasty, so don’t sweat it.
Ferment in the Fridge
If you’ll be away from the house for awhile, you can ferment your dough in the fridge. This slows down the ferment to keep it controlled until you can get to it.
Since I’m always low on fridge space, if I’m going to ferment in the fridge, I transfer the dough to a plastic bag, which is so much smaller than the bowl.
If you’re concerned about the cleanliness of your eggshells, fermenting in the fridge is better for food safety. If you’re sure your eggshells are free of contaminants like salmonella, you may include them in the initial mix and rise time since your dough will be baked at a temperature high enough to kill bacteria.
Random Stuff for the Best Sourdough Apple Challah
If you’d like to be accurate, weighing the dough before and while you split it into equal pieces is the best way. I’m a spastic baker and rarely use a kitchen scale but they are the best tool for being precise and getting consistent results when you bake.
Sweating the apples is a very useful step, so try not to skip it even if you’re in a hurry. It only takes about ten minutes to draw off a decent amount of apple water. Incidentally, this sugary-spiced apple water is delicious to add into cinnamon roll glaze or even into cinnamon roll dough itself to replace the liquid called for in the recipe.
- Also, you may want to re-brush with the egg wash to get the rising crevices and braided areas. The egg was produces a golden top, but those crevices will be white, if you don’t brush them as they expand.
- You may need to cover the challah with foil as it finishes baking to prevent scorching the top. Tent the foil over the load.
When done baking, remove and allow the challah to rest for at least twenty minutes for the sugars and dough to set. Serve warm or completely cooled.
Don’t freak out at the number of steps this recipe has – it really is just bread. It’s also festival food, so it only gets trotted out for special occasions and holidays. Have your kids help you make it and turn it into an event.
More Apple Recipes
If you have more apples on hand, try making any of the following belly-filling recipes!
Fall Apple Recipes
Easy Homemade Apple Kuchen Recipe
A Simple Spiced Apple Bread Recipe (Plus the Benefits of Apples)
Sourdough Apple Bread with Fresh Apples
Easy Homemade Apple Oatmeal Muffins with Cinnamon
Apple Crumble Muffins
–>>Pin This Article for Later<<–
Leave a Reply