Learn how to make delicious gluten free challah bread that everyone will love. Serve this delicious enriched, braided bread at the holiday table, or any day!
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What makes this gluten free challah recipe special?
This recipe is unlike many other gluten free challah bread recipes you'll find. It can hold its shape as a true, braided bread without being stiff and dry. It has the most beautiful, moist, and tender open crumb.
Most gluten free challah recipes you'll find are made in a molded loaf pan that mimics the shape of braided bread. If you search the web for “gluten free challah bread,” you'll often find recipes that ask you to expect that your bread will be “heavier” or more “dense.”
The texture, flavor, aroma, and crumb of your gluten free bread should be no different from whatever conventional bread you've come to expect. And this gluten fee bread hits all the right notes, so keep those expectations high, where they should be!
What is the taste and texture of good challah?
Challah bread is a highly enriched bread, made with plenty of oil, egg yolks, and some sugar, too. That's how you get that thin, tender, dark brown crust and the rich aroma of deeply browned bread.
Challah is not a high-rising, fluffy bread. Instead, it's meant to hold its shape after being braided, and to have a more closed, chewy crumb. It tastes slightly, but not overly, sweet and tastes pleasantly eggy, like a cross between Hawaiian rolls and brioche.
Handling the dough without too much flour
Challah dough must be handled quite a lot, since it's separated into 3 parts, each part is rolled into a long strand, and then all 3 strands are braided together. This isn't a very wet dough, since wet batter-style gluten free bread dough can't be shaped, so it's very important not to add much more of any type of flour when you shape the dough.
The dough is prepared properly by being chilled well in a tightly sealed container, and then dusted very very lightly with tapioca starch. Both of these steps are designed to make the dough easier to handle without kneading in more flour.
When you're preparing bread dough and you add more flour, the more you add, the lower the hydration ratio of the bread is. If the bread dough is not properly hydrated, it won't rise well.
If this dough were too wet, you couldn't possibly handle it enough to braid it. Plus, the dough would never hold its shape during rising and baking. We need to find that sweet spot, where you can handle and shape the bread with a light touch aided only by a little bit of extra starch.
If the dough seems too hard to handle and you're tempted to add even more starch, place it back in the container and let it chill in the refrigerator for at least another hour. The dough will absorb more of the moisture, but it will still be locked inside. Plus, cold dough is less sticky by nature.
Braiding gluten free challah bread strands into a loaf
You can braid gluten free challah bread in a 3-strand, 4-strand, or even a 6-strand loaf. The braiding technique begins the same way as any braided bread recipe—but the handling of the dough requires some special care.
I've used a 3-strand braid here because it's the simplest (if you can braid a ponytail, you can braid a 3-strand challah!). If the three strands side by side (by side) are in places 1, 2, and 3, the braiding process is:
- 1 over 2, and return old 2 to 1 spot;
- 3 over 2, and return old 2 to 3 spot;
- Repeat until you reach the end of the braid.
Do not ever pull on the strands, though. They must not fray. Place them where you want them, overlapping them carefully and with intention.
Of course, if you'd prefer, you can use a challah mold pan and place the unshaped dough into the pan to rise and then bake.
Tips for making the best gluten free challah
Start with room-temperature ingredients
Unlike many gluten free yeast bread recipes that call for warm ingredients to activate the yeast quickly, this recipe calls for ingredients at room temperature. We then let the bread rest in the refrigerator so that the liquids are absorbed into the flour.
Use the right amount of sugar
Sugar in baking isn't just for sweetness. In fact, it's most valuable here in this recipe, and in many others, for tenderizing the bread, and keeping it fresh for longer.
The sugar here feeds the yeast so that it can grow. It also helps aid the browning and results in that deep brown challah crust.
Refrigerate your gf challah bread dough for easier handling
Refrigerating the raw dough in a tightly sealed container makes handling the dough easier.
First, it allows the flours time to absorb the liquid. You don't sacrifice any liquid, which the bread needs for rising and for texture, but the dough is less sticky. Second, refrigerating the dough makes it colder, making it easier to handle.
If you don't have time to refrigerate the dough, you can still work with it. It will just be a bit harder to handle and more fragile.
Give your gluten free challah bread dough time to rise
Yeast bread dough rises faster in warm (not hot) temperatures closer to 80°F that aren't drafty. It rises more slowly in colder temperatures.
It also must be covered properly as it rises, so the moisture in the dough doesn't evaporate. If the moisture evaporates, the dough will be too stiff and the yeast will not grow properly.
Add an egg wash before baking
An egg wash is just a beaten egg with either water or milk. Here, we're using water to keep it dairy-free easily.
After the braided raw dough has risen, we brush the egg wash on top of the braids and all along the perimeter. The egg wash helps the braids brown beautifully and keeps the dough from breaking through the surface during its oven rise.
Avoid letting the egg wash pool in the space between the braids. We want that portion to rise freely.
How to serve this challah bread substitute
This challah bread is amazing in the center of your Jewish holiday meal. But you don't have to celebrate Jewish holidays to enjoy this gluten free challah!
Sliced thickly, this challah makes rich, eggy, lightly sweet gluten free French toast. You'll find yourself snatching some slices from the loaf to ensure there are leftovers for gluten free bread pudding, too.
Try toasting a generous slice and topping it with light and fluffy scrambled eggs. Or just a big schmear of cream cheese and a light sprinkling of chives.
How to store and freeze your gluten free braided bread
If you're not planning to serve your bread right away, you can keep it fresh for about 8 hours at room temperature. Just wrap it tightly in plastic and eliminate as much air as possible.
For any leftover bread, be sure to slice it how you'd like to serve it, wrap it tightly in the same manner, and freeze it. Defrost it one slice at a time in the microwave or at room temperature, and refresh it in the toaster oven.
I don't recommend freezing raw yeast bread, only baked yeast bread. If the temperature drops too low, you may kill the yeast and waste all that hard work and delicious bread!
Gluten free challah bread ingredient substitution suggestions
This challah is already dairy-free. Let's talk about suggestions for making other substitutions.
Can you make this gluten free challah bread without eggs?
It isn't as easy to replace egg yolks as it is to replace whole eggs. You can try using three tablespoons of vegan butter in place of the three egg yolks to replace the fat of the yolks.
Can you make vegan gluten free challah?
If you replace the egg yolks with vegan butter successfully, you'll need to replace the honey to have a recipe for gluten free vegan challah bread. In place of honey, try using light corn syrup.
Does it matter which gluten free flour blend you use in this gf challah recipe?
Yes! It matters a lot which gf flour blend you use. And it matters that you add the additional 75 grams of tapioca starch/flour.
I highly recommend using Better Batter (or our DIY mock Better Batter style blend) as the all purpose gluten free flour blend. It took me years to develop a reliable gluten free challah bread recipe without using our gluten free bread flour to make it easy and dairy free.
Don't use Cup4Cup gluten free flour here, even though it is one of my favorite blends. It's simply too high in starch to produce proper bread that holds its shape as intended (it would make a paler, fluffier, and more out-of-shape loaf)—and browns properly here.
This recipe relies even more than usual on true precision in ingredient selection, and in measurement accuracy. For reliable results like the photos that taste amazing, you must use the flours specified, and you must measure by weight.
FAQs for this challah recipe
No. Traditionally, challah bread is made with wheat flour, along with lots of dairy-free enrichments like egg yolks, oil, and honey or other sugars.
This bread is what you might think of as a challah bread substitute, since it's made wheat-free. But it's a substitute that tastes just as it should—and no one will know that it's made with an all purpose gluten free flour blend.
No. Both brioche and challah are enriched breads, but they're not at all the same.
Brioche is a richer, heartier bread than challah, and challah is best made without butter, so it's pareve (neither milk nor meat, which can't be mixed in kosher meal) and can be served with any holiday meal.
Resist the urge to add much more flour or starch! Try returning the dough to its sealed container and placing it in the refrigerator to chill for at least another hour.
There are many reasons that you might have trouble getting a yeast bread to rise. Here are some questions to ask yourself:
Did you use one of my recommended flour blends, measured by weight?
Did you add more than a light dusting of extra flour on your dough during shaping?
Is your yeast fresh?
Did you wait long enough? Overproofing is not a matter of too long a rise, but too much of a rise. Sometimes a rise takes much longer than anticipated depending on the temperature and humidity in your kitchen.
Yes, this gluten free challah bread is already dairy-free. It's made with olive oil instead of butter, and water instead of milk. If you want to replace the olive oil, I recommend using vegan butter. Do not use a flavorless oil like canola or vegetable oil, or the flavor will suffer.
The Best Gluten Free Challah Bread Recipe
Equipment
- Stand mixer with paddle attachment (See Recipe Notes)
Ingredients
- 1 ¾ cups (245 g) all purpose gluten free flour blend (I used Better Batter and recommend it highly here; please click thru for appropriate blends you must choose carefully for results!)
- ¾ teaspoon xanthan gum omit if your blend already contains it
- ⅝ cup (75 g) tapioca starch/flour plus more for sprinkling
- 1 ⅔ teaspoons (5 g) instant yeast (See Recipe Notes)
- ¼ cup (50 g) granulated sugar
- 2 teaspoons (6 g) kosher salt
- ¾ cup (6 fluid ounces) lukewarm water plus a teaspoon or so more if necessary
- 4 tablespoons (56 g) extra virgin olive oil
- 3 (75 g) egg yolks at room temperature
- 2 tablespoons (42 g) honey
- Egg wash 1 large egg, at room temperature, beaten with 1 tablespoon water
- Poppyseeds or sesame seeds for sprinkling (optional)
Instructions
Make the challah bread dough
- In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, place the flour blend, xanthan gum, tapioca starch/flour, instant yeast, and granulated sugar. Whisk to combine well.
- Add the salt, and whisk again to combine.
- Add a bit more than 1/2 cup of the water, olive oil, egg yolks, and honey. Using the paddle attachment, beat vigorously.
- With the mixer running, add as much of the remaining water as necessary for the dough to smooth out. In a warm, humid environment, it may take a bit less than the full 3/4 cup of water. In a dry, cold environment, it may take less. Watch the texture very carefully.
- The dough mixture will come together in a clump and then smooth out and stick to the sides of the bowl. Keep beating until it begins to look whipped, and the color lightens a bit (about 6 minutes total).
- Transfer the mixture to a lightly oiled bucket or bowl with a very tight-fitting lid. Place the container in the refrigerator, tightly sealed, for at least an hour and up to 2 days.
Shape the braided gf challah
- When you’re ready to bake, turn out the chilled dough onto a surface very very lightly dusted with tapioca starch/flour.
- Sprinkle the top very very lightly with more starch, and divide the dough into 3 equal portions. Do not add much starch, or your bread will not rise properly.
- If the dough seems too hard to handle and you're tempted to add even more starch, place it back in the container and let it chill in the refrigerator for at least another hour.
- Working with one piece at a time, knead the dough in your clean, dry hands, without adding any additional flour of any kind, pinching any seams that separate.
- Begin working the dough into a cylindrical shape, pinching any gaps together, fanning your hands out toward the edges to lengthen the strand.
- Rolling back and forth, create strands about 15 inches long from end to end that taper slowly from the center to each end, with very tapered ends. Sprinkle each strand lightly with more tapioca flour on the outside of the cylinder to smooth the surface, then set it aside.
- Place the 3 strands on a lightly floured surface parallel to one another and about 5 inches apart from one another. Gather the tapered ends on one side together, pinch them securely and tuck the very end under the knot.
- Plait the 3 strands as you would any 3-strand braid. Do not pull the strands, as they’ll fray. Just place them on top of one another as you work toward from one end to the other.
- Beginning as close as possible to the bound end, place one outside strand across the center strand, exchanging the center for the outside strand you just moved to the center.
- Repeat with the other outside strand and center strand. Repeat the process, alternating one side and then the other until you reach the end. Tuck the end under as you did the other side.
- Placing your hands carefully under each side of the braided loaf, carefully lift the braid onto a lined baking sheet. Press the finished braid gently on each ends toward center to shorten the length a bit.
- Sprinkle the top of the braid lightly with more tapioca starch and brush off excess from the valleys between braids.
Let the bread rise.
- Cover the braid securely with plastic wrap, and place the loaf in a warm, draft-free location. Allow the loaf to rise until it’s at least 150% its original size (anywhere from 45 minutes to hours).
- If any of the tops of the strands begin to separate from one another as the dough rises, try to smooth and pinch them closed. When the dough is nearing the end of its rise, preheat your oven to 350°F.
Bake the bread.
- Uncover the risen bread and brush the tops and sides of the braids very generously with the egg wash. Avoid letting the egg wash pool in between the braids. Sprinkle the top evenly with the optional seeds.
- Place the baking sheet in the center of the preheated oven. Bake for 30 minutes, rotate the baking sheet 180° and reduce the oven temperature to 325°F.
- Continue to bake for about 15 minutes, or until the bread bounces back when pressed on a center braid and the internal temperature is at least 190°F on an instant read thermometer.
- Remove the bread from the oven and allow it to cool on the baking sheet for at least 20 minutes before transferring to a wire rack too cool completely. Slice and serve.
Notes
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Hi, I’m Nicole. I create gluten free recipes that really work and taste as good as you remember. No more making separate meals when someone is GF, or buying packaged foods that aren’t good enough to justify the price. At Gluten Free on a Shoestring, “good, for gluten free” just isn’t good enough! Come visit my bio!
Samuel says
So good! Very nice flavor and texture. It is really addicting. I love your recipes so much, thank you!
Nicole Hunn says
You’re very welcome, Samuel.
Joan says
I have made the dough and it has been refrigerated for 24 hours. Can I braid it, cover it and refrigerate it it another day and take it out to rise on day 3?
Nicole Hunn says
No, you can’t shape the bread and then not bake it. It will overproof, even in the refrigerator, and it will dry out.
Bernadine merlino says
I have your cook books and use them daily.
This recipe is why! The crumb on this bread was so tender, the bread to light.
I followed your instructions to the letter.
My bread did not rise enough on the first rise.
I let it rise another 30 minutes.
That did the trick.
It is a cool day today so it needed more warmth to rise.
Thank you for this recipe. I forgot that bread could taste like this
Charlene Reagan says
Today I made 2 loaves of this gf challah and love how it looks. I used challah bread molds rather than braiding the dough. I used your time & temperatures for baking and then turned the loaves out onto a parchment covered baking sheet. I applied an egg wash and returned the bread to the oven for 10 minutes. One is plain and the other is covered with poppy seeds. We will be eating the bread later tonight. I used Paola Anna Miget’s custom blend of gf flour which works great for cakes, breads & rolls.
Rachel says
We made both raisin and raisin free holiday challah with your recipe, and it was outstanding! So delicious and relatively easy, though my turbans didn’t look quite perfect. I only had an hour to chill dough. Next time I’ll try planning for longer. There will be many next times because we loved your recipe.
Sandra F says
I thought I’d try this recipe because I thought making the dough the night before and refrigerating overnight would save me time the next day. Sadly, the dough didn’t rise and the result was really not edible. I didn’t have unlimited time to see if it would rise if I had hours instead of 1 hr 15 min in a proving drawer. I’m wondering if using a food processor with a metal blade resulting in overheating, and thus killing the yeast. Otherwise I stuck to the recipe and weighed ingredients.
Nicole Hunn says
I’m afraid you can’t rush the rising process, Sandra. Please ask yourself: did you measure water by weight, make any other substitutions, allow the dough to rise in an environment that isn’t properly sealed (leads to drying out and no rise), or add too much flour during shaping. The final one is usually the problem.
Erica says
I love the idea of this recipe and bought the flour you recommended. We carefully followed the steps but the dough was super dense and dry. I even added a bit more water after seeing how dense it was. Any advice as to what might have led to this? Thank you so much!
Nicole Hunn says
Hi, Erica, my guesses are what they always are: did you measure water by weight, make any other substitutions, allow the dough to rise in an environment that isn’t properly sealed (leads to drying out and no rise), or add too much flour during shaping. The final one is usually the problem.
Anne says
Any suggestions for higher altitude? I’m at 4,000 feet above sea level. I’ve had trouble getting almost any kind of bread to rise well.
Nicole Hunn says
I’m afraid I don’t have any experience with higher altitude, but other readers have said that their “usual” adjustments usually work. Sorry I can’t be more help!
Sue says
Very disappointed with this recipe which claims it’s the best. So I decided to make gf challah for my husband for Rosh Hashanah. I used a 1:1 flour which has both tapioca flour & xanthan gum.
The dough was very sticky ( gloppy). It didn’t rise!
I couldn’t even knead it without adding more flour.
This recipe is not for me! I haven’t baked it yet, waiting for the dough to rise 150 %…. At this rate, I’ll be here forever!
Looks like another NO Gf Challah for my husband!
Nicole Hunn says
It sounds like you did not use one of my recommended flour blends, Sue. I make as clear as I possibly can in the post and in the recipe that the flour chosen is a cornerstone of this recipe. In addition, tapioca starch isn’t only necessary in the all purpose gluten free flour blend. It’s also a separate ingredient. This recipe requires precision.
Bonnee says
I would love to try this but paying $40 for a 5 pound bag of flour is out of the question. Other options?
Nicole Hunn says
You can follow the link in the recipe to the all purpose gluten free flour blends page, buy the individual flours, and mix your own. I’m afraid that’s all I can really offer. It’s unfortunate but true that it’s expensive and the much more inexpensive blends simply don’t work.
Mindy says
Hi!
While I am waiting for a response to my last comment, I thought I’d try to make this “to practice” for dinner last night.
Everyone loved the taste of the challah (some better than regular), but it didn’t rise as much as it should have, thus was dense. I used Better Batter Classic, new yeast, weighed everything (I always do), let rise in the refrigerator for 1 1/2 days, and did the second rise using the microwave proofing method for 5 hours! It still didn’t rise! And I purchased a new oven thermometer, and it confirmed that my oven runs cold, so I adjusted the temp accordingly.
I think I might use the Challah molds for this. Which size would work for this recipe?
Do you have any suggestions? Thank you!
I love your recipes….off to bake some more!
Nicole Hunn says
Hi, Mindy, I’m afraid I can’t really know where you’re deviating from the recipe as written since I’m not there with you. It’s very common that we have certain things we do in the kitchen that affect results without realizing it. The ones that come to mind are things that would lower hydration ratio, which is very particular in this recipe so it’s possible to shape but still have enough moisture to rise properly: if your refrigerator rise was in a container that wasn’t properly sealed, it would dry out in the refrigerator enough to prevent rise; if you used more than a touch of flour to shape the bread, it would lower the hydration ratio (my guess); if you undermeasured your water, same problem.
You can’t make this in a mold. It’s a shaped bread.
Anne Rainer says
Is the dough fairly sticky when first coming out of the bowl? I’m guessing the slow chilled rise firms it up for shaping?
Nicole Hunn says
Yes, as I discuss in the post, chilling the dough makes it a bit less sticky. Be careful not to add very much flour in shaping or you’ll lower the hydration ratio and the bread won’t rise.
Judith Ginsberg says
I followed the recipe exactly. Even ordered the flour and paid a lot. Left in the fridge over night. Took out and rolled the logs and made a four strand round loaf. Put in the oven on proof for 4 hours and it never rose. I baked it anyway and it came out flat and like cookie dough. Very disappointed after spending so much money on flour and time.
Nicole Hunn says
Judith, rising time can vary significantly, and is a function of environment, not time. That being said, if you made any ingredient substitutions and/or measured by volume, not weight, added too much flour in shaping or undermeasured liquid, the bread will not rise.
Heidi Wesley says
after i took it out of the fridge and tried making it more of a dough it was so sticky that i couldnt even work with it. i followed the directions to a T so im really not sure what happened here. does it matter on the type of bowl you use to put it in the fridge? i used a stainless steel one.
Nicole Hunn says
As long as your bowl was sealed well in the refrigerator, a metal bowl should not matter. As far as what went wrong, unfortunately, everyone says that they “followed the recipe to a T” but it’s rarely the case, in ways you just don’t realize are important, but are.
Here are some considerations and questions to ask yourself as you attempt to figure out where you deviated from the recipe as written:
Did you make ingredient substitutions, particularly the gf flour blend? They are not all created equal at all. Please see the AP GF flour blends page here on the blog, which is linked in every recipe that calls for one.
Did you measure by weight, not volume? You can’t measure properly by volume, especially dry ingredients like flour, as human error is unavoidable.
With respect to yeast bread, did you allow the dough to rise long enough, and was your dough covered properly? Overproofing is a function of rising too much, not too long. It can take a long time for yeast bread to rise properly in a cool, dry environment, especially.
Max says
Can this recipe be manipulated to be used in a bread maker?
Nicole Hunn says
A highly shaped bread like this is not appropriate for a bread maker, no.
Heidi says
This looks like a great recipe. The look and crumb remind me very much of a Finnish coffee bread called pulla. It is flavoured with cardamom and course sugar on top. I might have to try it with your recipe.