Two Purim Breads: Keylitsh and Boyoja Ungola di Purim

As a certified carb addict, I’ll never say no to an opportunity to bake some bread. Bread is probably not the first food you think of in association with Purim (or the second, or third), but it turns out there are a wealth of Purim bread-baking traditions in Jewish cultures worldwide.

Today I have a recipe that allows you to try two of them with just one batch of challah dough. First there’s keylitsh, a large, elaborately braided Eastern European challah that’s served at a variety of special events, namely weddings and Purim feasts. Variously spelled as koyletsh, keylitsh, keylitch, koilitch, kulich, and koylatsh, there are a variety of braiding traditional braiding patterns for this bread—if you’re interested in learning about them, Maggie Glezer’s A Blessing of Bread is the most comprehensive resource I’ve found.

I opted for her Six-Stranded Crown Compound Braid, which consists of two three-stranded braids smushed together and topped with a six-stranded braid. The shape calls for twelve strands of equal size, which, as Glezer notes, are reminiscent of the twelve tribes of Israel. Traditional keylitsh tends to surpass one and a half feet in size, but I opted to make mine smaller for practical reasons. It was a tradition at Polish weddings for a woman holding a keylitsh, sometimes with lit candles set into it, to dance in front of the bride and groom, expressing a wish that they might always have bread. And at Purim, the extensive braiding is meant to recall the rope used to hang Haman. Scrumptious, no?!

If that’s not enough gore for your Purim table, I have just the thing for you: a traditional Moroccan bread known as boyoja ungola di Purim or ojos de Haman. This is a round, flattish loaf decorated with two hard boiled eggs in their shells, which are meant to represent Haman’s eyes. Each egg is held down with two thin strips of dough arranged in an x, and, once the bread is baked, it’s a traditional to rip them out of the loaf—you know, like ripping Haman’s eyes out. The dough for this bread is traditionally studded with anise and sesame seeds, as well as coarsely chopped almonds—I skipped out on these additions this time, but I’m sure they would be delicious.

The dough recipe below is loosely adapted from one of my favorites, Lendner’s Romanian Challah from Joan Nathan’s The Foods of Israel Today. I opted to go with half white whole wheat flour, in an attempt to healthify things, but you can just as easily sub your challah dough of choice.

Because whole wheat flour tends tends to yield a denser loaf than white, one of my favorite hacks when backing whole wheat bread is to add a tablespoon of vital wheat gluten along with the flour for extra fluffiness.

This recipe uses about two pounds of flour and yields enough dough for one small boyoja ungola and one midsized keylitsh.

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For the dough:

1 tablespoon dry yeast

2 cups warm water

1/3 cup sugar

4 tablespoons canola oil

1 tablespoon salt

3 cups white whole wheat flour

3 ½ cups bread flour, approximately

1 tablespoon vital wheat gluten, optional

1 egg, beaten

Dissolve the yeast in the water in a large bowl. Add the sugar, canola oil, salt, and 7 cups of the flour and knead, either with your hands or with a mixer with a dough hook, until smooth and soft. Add additional flour as needed. If kneading by hand, mix ingredients in the bowl and then turn out onto a floured surface to knead.

Place dough in a greased bowl. Cover and let rise for 1 hour, or until approximately doubled. Punch down, cover, and let rise for another 45 minutes.

Separate ¼ of the dough and set aside for the boyoja ungola. Reserve the rest for the keylitsh.

Preheat oven to 375° F. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper.

To assemble the keylitsh:

Take the ¾ of the dough reserved for this bread. Divide into 12 equal pieces and shape into strands of equal length and thickness.

Take 6 of the strands, and shape them into 2 3-stranded challot.

Take the remaining 6 strands and braid them into a 6-stranded loaf.

Smush the 2 3-stranded loaves together. Top them with the 6-stranded loaf, which should be centered in the middle of the two smaller braids.

For braiding guidelines, I recommend checking out Tori Avey’s instructions (though I hope to do my own braiding series here soon!).

To assemble the boyoja ungola:

Additional ingredients: 2 hardboiled eggs

Take the ¼ of the dough reserved for the boyoja ungola. Knead briefly into a ball. Remove a small amount of dough to make the four strips that will hold down the eggs.

Form the ball into a round flattened disk, approximately ¼ inch thick. Place two hard-boiled eggs in the center of the, and fasten them down individually with crosswise strips of dough.

Using scissors, make deep slits around the edge of the disk.

To bake:

Brush top of loaves with beaten egg (avoiding the hardboiled eggs as much as possible). Bake the boyoja ungola for approximately 20–25 minutes. Bake the keylitsh for approximately 45 minutes. Transfer each to a cooling rack after removing from oven.

Sources: A Blessing of Bread: The Many Rich Traditions of Jewish Bread Baking Around the World (Maggie Glezer, 2004); “Bury Haman’s Eyes in the Challah for Some Purim Whimsy,” the Times of Israel (Phyllis Glazer, February 22, 2013); Encyclopedia of Jewish Food (Gil Marks, 2010); The Essential Book of Jewish Festival Cooking: 200 Seasonal Holiday Recipes and Their Traditions (Myriam Glazer and Phyllis Glazer, 2004); The Foods of Israel Today (Joan Nathan, 2001)