Make Rosh Hashanah A Little Simpler This Year With Pull-Apart Challah Rolls

Rosh Hashanah is the Jewish New Year, one of the most important holidays for worship and celebration. These feats involve many delicious traditional dishes that often symbolize stories surrounding the holiday, or in the case of Rosh Hashanah, well wishes for the new year. Challah, a braided loaf of brioche-like bread, is a mainstay at every Jewish celebration, except for all the flourless Passover recipes. However, a Rosh Hashanah challah is round, formed into a beautiful spiral or circular braid, and studded with raisins to symbolize, among other things, prosperity, God's timeless omnipotence, and good times without end.

If you're daunted by the task of forming a spiraled Challah, you can make Rosh Hashanah a little simpler this year with pull-apart Challah rolls instead. Pull-apart bread will maintain the symbolism of the circle because it's composed of dough balls that you can bake in a circular baking tin. You can use our recipe for the ultimate challah bread to create the dough.

However, instead of forming the risen dough into a thick braid, you'll divide it into 15 different mounds to form circular knots. Then, pack the knots into a circular or rectangular baking pan, cover the pan, and let the dough rest for another 30 minutes while you preheat the oven. Brush the rolls with egg wash for that beautiful deep brown brioche crust and bake them at 350 degrees Fahrenheit for 30 minutes, rotating the baking pan halfway through.

Our recipe for the ultimate challah is a traditionally savory dough, but you can put that sweet Rosh Hashanah twist to it by adding raisins and cinnamon. Work them in with the wet and dry ingredients as you knead them in a stand mixer, which is well worth the investment for avid breadmakers. Mixing dried fruit into the dough is a better idea than sprinkling them on top before baking because there's nothing more unpleasant than a burnt, crunchy raisin. You can serve this raisin and cinnamon Challah pull apart bread with a compound butter infused with cinnamon and brown sugar or honey.

Apples and honey challah is another Rosh Hashanah-inspired variant you can transform into pull-apart bread. These foods are eaten on Rosh Hashanah to symbolize a sweet and prosperous new year. You can integrate this ritual into your challah pull-apart bread by mixing three-quarters of a cup of honey into the dough as you knead it. Next, incorporate small cubes of green apple tossed in cinnamon sugar into the knots. To create knots, first form the dough into a long rope. It is during this step that you'll line each rolled-out length of dough with apples before forming the rope, and subsequently the knot. You can even incorporate a tablespoon of honey into the egg wash you'll brush over your knots for a golden crust that's as sweet as the year to come.