Recipe: Boyoja Ungola Di-Purim (Haman’s Eyes Buried in Challah)

By Margi Lenga Kahn

Ingredients:

  • 1 pound portion of unbaked challah dough, kneaded and risen for 1½ hours, or held overnight in the refrigerator. 
  • 2 hardboiled eggs

Directions:

  1. Cut off a fist-size portion of the dough, set small portion onto the side of your counter and cover it a piece of plastic wrap.
  2. Place the remaining piece of dough onto a lightly floured counter. Gently press down on dough and form it into a half-inch thick circle.  
  3. Using the side of your fist, press two depressions in the top third of the circle toward the center, about 1½ to two inches apart. Place a hard-boiled egg in each depression. 
  4. Roll out piece of dough you had set aside on the side of your counter. Roll dough into a half-inch-thick square and cut four even strips from the dough. Make two X shapes  with two strips of dough each and position each X over each egg, pressing ends of strips into larger dough circle to secure them.
  5. Using scissors, cut 1-inch slits  at 1-inch intervals all the way around the outside of the bread. You will be cutting from the outer edge toward the center. 
  6. Loosely cover dough with plastic wrap and let rise at room temperature for 30 minutes. 
  7. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
  8. Brush top of bread with beaten egg (avoiding the hardboiled eggs as much as possible). Bake for approximately 20–25 minutes. Makes one bread.