Challah Rolls Recipe - Kickass Baker (2024)

I've taken my very best Challah Bread recipe and turned it into mini knotted Challah Rolls. Perfect for sandwiches and your bread basket! The interior of this challah is light and airy with a golden crust. Learn how to braid challah into rolls like a pro with this recipe and technique. Yields 10 rolls.

KAB reader Zoe says: "I cannot explain these Challah Rolls any other way than heavenly perfection. This is my new go to recipe for dinner rolls!" ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️

Looking for more Challah recipes? Try my 4-strand Fluffy Challah Bread, Round Challah, and Sourdough Challah.

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The Secret to the Best Challah bread

The recipe for these Challah rolls is adapted from one of my my trusted recipe resources, Cook’s Illustrated.

They had previously published a recipe for Challah that I’ve been using for years. I liked it. Didn’t love it. But, it was the best one I could find.

Until…. they came out with their favorite Challah recipe.

And now it is definitely my favorite challah recipe, too! Here's where you can find the post with that recipe for braided Challah loaf.

As you’ll see in the recipe, one of the critical methods to produce this challah is an Asian method of creating a flour paste out of cooked flour and water calledtangzhong.

This technique produces softer yeast breads. Which is exactly what we want in a challah. But we can enjoy the softer bread and have fun with making it a beautiful design too, like in this braided Round Challah.

And now I've adapted this recipe into challah rolls which are perfect for the dinner table or for stacking high with your favorite sandwich meat/filling. If you are looking for super quick and easy rolls for weeknight dinner, try One Hour Dinner Rolls.

How to Braid Challah Rolls

Braiding challah rolls is quite simple. The first step is to divide the dough into evenly sized portions.

I make 10 rolls out of this batch of dough.

You can either weigh the dough and divide by 10 to determine the weight of each portion or you can eyeball it. Personal preference!

This is the kitchen scale I use to weigh the dough and portions. It's inexpensive and a wonderful tool to have handy in your kitchen if you do a fair amount of cooking and/or baking.

Working with one portion of dough at a time, divide the dough into two pieces. You don't have to be exact here. Roll each piece into a 10-inch long rope.

Press both the ends of the ropes of dough together firmly at one end.

Next, twist the ropes of dough around each other, stretching them out as you twist, if the ropes of dough have shrunken or bounced back after you rolled them out initially.

While holding the joined ends together with one hand, coil or wrap the twisted ropes around to form a roll shape.

Firmly pinch the tail end underneath the roll so it stays in place.

Repeat with remaining portions of dough. Place gently on a parchment lined baking sheet, cover loosely with plastic wrap, and allow to proof for about 3 hours, or until the dough does not spring back fully when gently pressed with your knuckle.

Tips for Making Challah Rolls

• Like most recipes for homemade bread, it’s recommended that you weigh your dry ingredients using a kitchen scale. The cup measurements are provided in the recipe as well as the weights for convenience. However, a much better texture and chew will result from this challah bread recipe if you weigh your ingredients rather than measure them in cups. This is because weight is much more precise a measure so your proportions of dry to wet ingredients will be precise to produce the best result
• Most bread recipes call for you to knead your bread on a well-floured surface. For this challah bread recipe, it is not recommended that you flour your kneading surface. This is because friction is needed to roll and twist the ropes of bread dough. Also, this is a stiff and dry dough, so adding additional flour will increase the dryness, resulting in much drier and denser rolls. Nope, we do not want that
• When rolling out the ropes of dough, you may notice that the dough is quite springy and shrinks after you've rolled it out. What I do is roll both ropes out to 10 inches, then as I'm twisting the ropes around each other, I stretch the ropes out a bit while twisting. So, I pull gently on the ropes while I'm twisting
• Once the dough is twisted and wrapped around itself, be sure to pinch tightly the end of the twisted dough to the underside of the roll. This will prevent the dough from unraveling while it's proofing and/or baking
• Rather than baking your challah bread on a single baking sheet, nest or stack two baking sheets on top of one another to keep the bottom of the loaf from getting too dark or burnt. This trick works really well if your oven runs hot and other baked goods like cookies tend to get browned or burnt on the bottom before the inside is fully baked through

Now that you're getting good at shaping bread, I think you'll enjoy learning another shape that's very ornate looking. Check out my round challah instructions.

Be sure to know How To Reheat Challah so you don't dry out your delicious homemade bread by accident either!

Can I make this challah with raisins?

Yes! I would recommend adding the raisins in towards the end of the 9 minute kneading at the end of step 2. Add about ¾ - 1 cup (118 - 158 grams) of raisins into the dough and continue kneading until well incorporated. Continue with the recipe as written.

FOR ALL MY FAVORITE BAKING TOOLS INCLUDING THOSE USED TO MAKE THIS RECIPE, CHECK OUT MY BAKING RESOURCES PAGE!

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