Easy, Apple-Stuffed Challah Crown

A show-stopping centerpiece to celebrate Autumn

Hello dear friends,

I hope Autumn has you enraptured in some delight, because it’s there to be seen! (See Mary Oliver’s poem The Poet With His Face In His Hands, below).

In the Finger Lakes, it’s been blasting sunshine and golden hues all month, and with it, a steady stream of apples.

This is our second year as members of the Open Spaces Cider CSA, an incredible project founded by Melissa Madden, who forages weekly apple shares from partner farms. The apple harvests this year are unexpected given the Spring freezes that compromised many trees. So you can be sure we are celebrating these autumnal gifts, and Melissa’s weekly love letters get us very excited! Of Honeycrisps she writes, “Large crystalline-like cells shatter into juice.” Of the Redfree, “Some of the shapes are truly wonky. Like a slide on a playground. Send them to school with your kiddos.” I mean!

In the Jewish tradition, the fall harvest season is celebrated with Rosh Hashanah and Sukkot, both rooted in agricultural traditions. In the regions where the Semites first lived, Rosh Hashanah - the Jewish New Year - coincided with the first cycle of sowing the seed and bringing in the harvest. We celebrate by dipping apples in honey.

For Sukkot, we build structures to dine in, Sukkahs, representing the temporary huts farmers built in their fields during the harvest season. Sukkahs are decorated with corn stalks and harvest foods, such as pumpkins and apples. (More on Sukkot in my new book, Seasonal Family Almanac).

Soaking up the after-school sunshine roasting apples over a campfire, painting shells, making garden plots, and building fairy houses by the creek.

For Rosh Hashanah earlier in September, I had this idea to stuff challah with apples, and when I googled whether anyone had done it before, I discovered it was a “thing.” Then I thought, well, I’ll make mine into a crown… and well, that was a “thing” too.

And someone had the even more brilliant idea to weave the challah crown around a small oven-safe jar or pot, bake it, and once cooled, fill the pot with honey. Then knobs of apple-y challah are torn away and dipped in!

I adapted a recipe from Renana’s Kitchen and was astonished by how easy it was to make. And even though Rosh Hashanah is over, there are loads of apples to keep celebrating, and THIS IS THE WAY TO DO IT!

I truly hope you give this a try. If you know someone who would like this recipe, or this occasional newsletter, could you please share it with them?

Thank you for your continued love and support!

With fronds of goldenrod in my hair (just kidding, my hair’s a mess),

Emma

Fire-Candied Peaches with Cinnamon and Honey from Seasonal Family Almanac: a primer on roasting fruit! Substitute with apples.

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Monthly Updates

Every month I want to share top-of-mind updates with you, so here’s my first short list:

• The coming of age fantasy novel The Golden Compass; I missed this as a kid and am tearing through Book 1. Speaking of which, if you haven’t read (by yourself or to your kids) Sylvia Lindsteadt’s The Wild Folk, you must get your hands on it. I’m considering putting down non-fiction for a while and trying “a year of novels.” Any good reccs?

• Assistant coaching my kids on their first soccer teams. I was a serious soccer player, and soccer has continued to be one of my primary languages for making new friends around the world. The kids are loving it, so far!

• Auditing an acting class at Cornell, taught my brilliant teacher and friend Theo Black; seriously having SO much fun and learning SO much.

• Just discovered my littlest is suffering from allergies, and I’m brewing goldenrod tea with honey to help; I’ll take any other reccs!

• Motivated by a new goal to not buy any new clothes this season and save lots of time and money searching for the “perfect” thing that doesn’t fit and then having to return it. Sound familiar?

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Easy, Apple-Stuffed Challah Crown

An impressive, festive centerpiece for the family. Adapted from Renana’s Kitchen.

Prep time: 10 minutes / Cook time: 30 minutes / Resting time: 2 hours / Total time: 2 hours hrs 40 minutes

Dough:

• 3½ cups all-purpose flour

• 1½ tablespoon dry yeast

• ¼ cup sugar

• 1 egg

• 4 tablespoon olive oil

• 1 cup lukewarm water (+2 more tablespoons if the dough is too dry)

Apple filling:

• 1 apple, peeled and cut to small 1/2-inch cubes

• 1 teaspoon cinnamon

• ¼ cup sugar

• 1/8 teaspoon salt

Garnish:

• 1 egg, beaten 

• Handful sesame seeds

• Handful poppy seeds

In a stand mixer bowl, add all the dough ingredients. Knead the dough on low speed for 4-5 minutes, until you have a smooth ball. (You can also do this by hand in a large bowl.)

Lightly grease a medium-sized bowl with olive oil, and transfer the ball of dough to the greased bowl. Cover with a clean, damp tea towel. Place the bowl in a warm spot (a sunny windowsill or a near a radiator) and allow the dough to rise for 2 hours. It should double in size.

In a small bowl, mix the filling ingredients.

Prepare a baking sheet with a silicone mat or parchment paper.

When the dough has risen, divide it into three parts and place them on the prepared baking sheet.

Use your hands to gently roll each part into a long snake, and then use your fingertips to press the snakes into flat rectangles.

Place 1/3 of the filling in the middle of the rectangle. Bring the long edges of the rectangle together in the middle, over the filling, and pinch closed so the filling won’t run out.

Place the oven rack on the middle rung and preheat the oven to 350°F.

Braid the three rectangles together, and then gently shape it into a crown/ circle.

Place a small, oven-safe jar or pot in the center of the braided challah (to fill with honey later).

Brush the challah with the beaten egg.

Sprinkle the seeds over the challah for garnish.

Bake for 30 minutes.

Let the challah cool completely.

Fill the small bowl with honey. Devour.

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My bi-weekly commute up Cascadilla Gorge to acting class on Cornell’s campus.

The Poet With His Face In His Hands

By Mary Oliver

You want to cry aloud for your
mistakes. But to tell the truth the world
doesn’t need anymore of that sound.

So if you’re going to do it and can’t
stop yourself, if your pretty mouth can’t
hold it in, at least go by yourself across

the forty fields and the forty dark inclines
of rocks and water to the place where
the falls are flinging out their white sheets

like crazy, and there is a cave behind all that
jubilation and water fun and you can
stand there, under it, and roar all you

want and nothing will be disturbed; you can
drip with despair all afternoon and still,
on a green branch, its wings just lightly touched

by the passing foil of the water, the thrush,
puffing out its spotted breast, will sing
of the perfect, stone-hard beauty of everything.

New and Selected Poems, Vol. 2