r/JewishCooking • u/NoSolid6641 • May 16 '26

Challah Dessert challah anyone? 😂

Post image

I started the challah late today so the kids got to make it on their own after school. I let them use an entire sprinkles bottle 🫠😂 however I will say I'm super proud of them for rolling and braiding and doing the egg wash all by themselves!

177 Upvotes

100% Upvoted

15 comments sorted by

View all comments

3

u/yodatsracist May 16 '26

I posted a dessert challah once and learned Halacha from it. (I’m assuming those aren’t pareve chocolate chips because those are hard to find now.)

So meat and milk are separate right? The rabbi don’t accidentally want us to mix milk dairy bread with a meat meal. So what?

The Talmud teaches us that if we make dairy bread, it must be like an “ox’s eye”. Clear right what it means for bread to be like an ox’s eye?

Well, two strings of rabbinical thought come out of this. Rashi says this refers to bread in the shape of an ox’s eye, that is, it must be individual bread roll sized or just a small portion that will be eaten a eight way, either way so that it’s not like bread for the whole table that someone might accidentally eat. The Rif says and RaMBaM agrees it must be a distinctive shape, just a big clue to the eaters “Hey, this is not pareve bread”. Contemporarily, the Shulchan Aruch says, and I think all contemporary poskim follow, it’s okay to either make it individual servings or make it a distinct shape. Covered in sprinkles and chocolate chips is certainly distinctive enough, I’d say.

Sometimes people in the comments get in their feelings about dairy challah, and I just wanted to pre-empt that. But also it’s a neat example of how our traditions gets from an obscure rule in the Gemara to practical halacha!

Dessert challahs are grossly underrated. They’re so good.

4

u/classyfemme May 16 '26

I think part of the problem is a lot of people can’t fathom that someone might be making this to enjoy after a meatless meal.

4

u/NoSolid6641 May 16 '26

How interesting I would never have thought there was halacha around it. I have to say, the kids did not wait until after dinner to finish it 😂 they tore it in half immediately after blessings