Baking challah in the snow

I'm sure we all found that the smell of something wonderful baking was a lovely treat over the past few days. (My apologies to anyone who lost power who missed out.) Despite being tired of cooking, I decided that it was time to bake challah with my son. I wasn't sure whether the stores would have any and it seemed like a fun idea. He's getting good at play-dough and silly putty rolling, so I figured he could handle it. I timed it to make the dough at the start of his nap, and then we could punch it down and braid afterwards.

I couldn't have imagined how much fun he would have. Punching down the challah was the best part of the day (because the sledding had been mediocre) and braiding, just like Sammy the Spider does, was something he almost mastered by the time we were done. I'm not sure I selected the best recipe. I wanted to bake 2 loaves rather than 3 and Joan Nathan's recipe says it makes 2 loaves but I found that it generates more dough than the classic Jewish American Cookbook recipe, which states that it makes 3. Anyway, we will have two VERY large loaves. But the excitement in my son's eyes when he saw it some out of the oven was just wonderful.

It's so nice to do something relatively simple that can enrich both Shabbat and baking skills at once.