Apple Honey Challah
There is a secret food, ancient and almost forgotten, made of black honey and finely-ground wheat. Mix and let it rest in a pine box for months. Add egg yolks and all of the pungent spices of which you’ve never heard. Form into delicate pan loaves and allow to rise by a hearth. A watchman calls out! It’s midnight in the bleak midwinter. Perhaps we can conjure our own six hundred-year-old bread, just without all the crustiness.
Ancient in origin, here is my modern recipe for apple honey challah. It’s a perfect bread. Rich, but not too rich to toast two days after and have a sandwich of leftover duck and melon.
It makes the world’s best French toast. A cosmologist told me the day-old slices with their braided tops improve its French-toast-ability to an astronomical level. It’s true. In the center is a bright, whole apple poached in honey and spices. As it bakes, the honeyed juice seeps out and down into the bottom of the loaf. It’s a special bread. You can smell it for miles. You have to make it for yourself as much as for others when it’s cold outside. That's why this recipe makes two very large loaves. Gift one. Keep one.
