Nearly two dozen Jewish children
got their fingers gooey as they learned to bake their own challah bread during Chabad of Greater Orlando’s first “Mega Baka-llah Bake.”
MAITLAND – Lily Stahlman couldn’t wipe the grin off her face, nor the gooey dough from her fingers and hands.
The 10-year-old had already mixed yeast with warm water, as well as oil, sugar, salt and flour to form the dough to make the symbolic Jewish bread challah. The result was a mound of floured dough, as well as some stray powder on her green shirt and apron.
“Whenever it comes to baking, I love making a mess in the kitchen,” said Stahlman, a fifth grader, who sometimes bakes the traditional bread with her mother. “I love making a mess. It’s what I do best.”
She was among the more than two dozen kids who learned to bake the challah and babka at Chabad of Greater Orlando’s first ever Mega Baka-llah Bake.
Challah is a braided bread and eaten during Shabbat, or the Jewish Sabbath. Babka is a sweeter chocolate yeast cake.
Esther Hoffer and her husband, Rabbi Amram Hoffer, are co-directors of the organization’s kids program, and the two helped teach the excitable batch of youngsters at Chabad’s campus in Maitland off Lake Howell Road how to form the dough, as well as its importance to their heritage.
“Challah is a precious age-old tradition for the Jewish family,” said Leah Dubov, codirector of Chabad of Greater Orlando. “It’s especially embraced by the Jewish woman of every household. It’s thousands and thousands of years old.”
After making challah, a piece is typically broken off and burned as an offering, Dubov said.
Fifth-grader Yael Ivan said she likes to make challah with her mother but prefers eating the chocolate babka.
“I love babka so much,” Ivan said. “I don’t like chocolate too much, but I like how babka is mashed together.”
But before they could eat, they had to prepare it, which meant forming the dough and, of course, kneading it.
“This is so satisfying,” Stahlman exclaimed.
While the dough was rising, the children
made Build-A-Bear-style stuffed challah dolls they could take home.
Chabad of Greater Orlando, which has seven campuses across Central Florida, has hosted similar events for women, Dubov said, which attracts hundreds from across the region to bake.
Similar outings have been held across the country including in Houston, Milwaukee and Denver.
But this was its first for children in what Dubov thinks will become an annual event.
“They’re learning about their heritage,” she said.
After their prep work was done, their challahs and babkas were ready to bake, and soon enough ready to eat.
“If I could only eat babka without any diet issues, I would,” Stahlman said. “Especially chocolate babka.”