White Horn Bakehouse Brings Joy in the Form of Challah Bread

In the Jewish faith, when it comes to celebrating a holiday — whether it’s Rosh Hashanah or Yom Kippur, Sukkot or Hanukkah — there is one reliable staple that is always a presence at gatherings and on the table: challah bread.

The significance of the bread, with its characteristic golden brown shine and braided texture, cannot be overstated, and the endless variations on creating it, both when it comes to shape and flavor, mean it provides a comforting culinary consistency while never getting old.

For those who appreciate the specific joy and delicious taste that freshly baked bread has to offer — and who doesn’t? — there is one home baker in East Hampton who has been steadily making a name for herself as a go-to purveyor of challah bread.

Several years ago, as the country was just coming out of the lockdown of the COVID-19 pandemic, East Hampton resident Stephanie Whitehorn started her own business, White Horn Bake House, operating out of her bucolic home in the village, not far from where her husband, Josh Franklin, serves as the senior rabbi of the Jewish Center of the Hamptons.

While cutting and measuring a large batch of dough on the white countertop in her sunlight-filled kitchen on a crisp October morning, Whitehorn spoke about the organic way she turned her passion for baking into a business, on the heels of the lockdown era.

“During the pandemic, like so many other people, I got into making sourdough,” she shared. “I was like, that looks fun, I’ll try that. I’ve always loved to bake.”

After mastering the sometimes complicated art of baking sourdough bread, Whitehorn quickly moved on to making challah bread. She recalled a day in summer 2021, when the idea of turning her passion and hobby into a business was planted by friends.

“We were doing outdoor Shabbat on the beach, and [my daughters] and I were running around handing out homemade challah bread, and people were saying, ‘When are you going to start selling it?’”

Whitehorn took that idea and ran with it, applying for and earning her home processor’s exemption, which allowed her to sell the bread she makes in her home, both retail and wholesale, and at farmers markets.

As of this fall, White Horn Bake House challah bread was being sold at both Balsam Farms in Amagansett and at Loaves & Fishes in Bridgehampton. Whitehorn has also hosted challah bread making classes in her home, and frequently posts about what she’s up to on her Instagram page. In addition to selling at retail locations, she also sells her bread to individual customers through her website (which was created and designed by her rabbi husband). During the busy Jewish New Year season last year, Whitehorn said she made about 80 challah breads.

One of the beautiful things about making challah bread is the opportunity it provides for endless variations on flavor and theme. During Hanukkah, Whitehorn has made menorah-shaped challah bread, and has even decorated them with gold food spray, or with different colored sprinkles, to make the bread look like a lit menorah. Circular-shaped challah bread is popular during Jewish holidays, Whitehorn said, explaining that, particularly during the Jewish New Year, the circular shape represents continuity, and the wheel of seasons. Plain and raisin challah are popular during Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, and other popular flavors throughout the year include jelly-filled, cinnamon sugar and pretzel.

“With Rosh Hashanah being the new year, it’s all about sweet things, like apples and honey,” Whitehorn explained, making raisins a natural fit for the bread at that time.

Whitehorn also makes round challahs for holidays like Sukkot — a weeklong holiday that celebrates both the fall harvest and the 40-year journey of the Israelites in the desert after escaping slavery in Egypt. During Sukkot, many Jewish families build a three-walled sukkah, a temporary outdoor hut or shelter, and eat a meal there and sometimes even sleep outside in the sukkah.

Considering the significance of challah bread in so many Jewish holidays and traditions, it’s no wonder that Whitehorn spends a lot of time in her kitchen, although she said she appreciates being engaged in the pursuit because it provides her with the kind of flexible job that allows her to still be engaged with and care for her two young children.

“Challah is really the traditional Jewish bread,” she said. “It’s on every Shabbat table, and you’ll see it at every celebration. It’s sort of had a comeuppance in recent years too. There are a lot of hot challah makers now, in Massachusetts, Los Angeles.”

There is plenty of tradition and ritual and spirituality that goes into making challah bread as well, and how closely anyone decides to adhere to or follow those traditions is up to them.

Traditionally, one small piece of the dough is separated out from the rest of the batch before shaping and braiding it and cooking it. That small piece is then wrapped in a piece of foil and burned in the oven. That burned piece is considered holy, and cannot be eaten or used for any other purpose, and must be disposed of in a dignified manner — it cannot be thrown in the garbage. Whitehorn includes this part of the process when she teaches a class, but admits she does not always do it for every piece of challah bread she bakes.

“For me, challah is more about the process,” she said. “I just love baking; I love creating and I love making other people happy with food.”

She has done plenty of experimentation with different flavors. She’s done lemon/olive/thyme; chocolate chip; scallion pancake; sesame pancake; honey wheat; Zatar spiced; truffle cheese; she’s even done a Halloween challah, stuffing it with candy (a big hit with her kids). She’s even done deep-fried versions for Hanukkah. Most of her customers prefer the standbys of plain, pretzel and cinnamon sugar, so that’s where she devotes the majority of her time.

Watching Whitehorn in her element, it’s clear that she has spent many hours in her kitchen devoted to the craft. She cuts and separates the dough with a swiftness and ease, and deftness of hands and fingers that illustrates that point, but she is humble, pointing out that she has her trusted tools — like Alexa, who helps with timing and math — her food scale, food thermometer, and dough scraper, and the biggest KitchenAid mixer that is still considered not commercial grade. She has also spent a fair amount of time and money at Costco, buying flour, eggs and other ingredients in bulk. Whitehorn takes advantage of the internet, specifically YouTube videos, to hone her craft — she also taught herself how to knit by watching YouTube tutorials — and follows several challah makers and influencers on Instagram, picking up tips and tricks from them. She’s a patient and effective teacher, with skill at demonstrating — and gently reminding people who, for instance, probably (definitely) spend way less time in the kitchen than she does — that the dough can be manhandled a bit more, and showcasing the technique of pressing and rolling it from the center outward, to make the strands that will be braided together.

Braiding a three-strand challah seems like the easy part — especially for those who may know their way around braiding the hair of two young daughters, for instance. But it still takes a bit of practice and art. Whitehorn does it with speed and efficiency, and she’s taken classes herself on how to braid challah with many more than three strands. The end result is beautiful, a piece of art that is both visually compelling and delicious.

She remains humble despite her success and the deliciousness of her bread. She pointed out that changes in the weather, even slight, can affect how the dough rises.

“I’ve had batches I’ve had to redo,” she said. “Every batch takes two hours to rise, another hour after braiding, and a half hour in the oven, so it’s a lot of time.”

It’s a process that Whitehorn enjoys, and the joy the bread brings to people makes it worth it. She said she’s still unsure how far she wants to take the business, pondering that almost never ending “work-life balance” question, where the answer seems even more evasive for mothers of young children. But one thing is for sure: Her product is the real deal.

When I arrived home from several fun-filled hours baking with Stephanie, the smell of several loaves of warm, freshly baked challah inundating my car, I encouraged my notoriously picky 7-year-old son to try a piece. When he’s offered a new or different food, he stubbornly refuses to even try it 9.5 times out of 10. He relented, but with a suspicious look in his eyes, as he took a bite of both the pretzel and cinnamon sugar challah breads.

Five minutes later, half of each loaf was almost gone, and he insisted, multiple times, that I needed to learn how to bake it.

Maybe one day, but for now, White Horn Bake House has a new customer.

For more information, visit whitehornchallah.com and follow whitehorn_bakehouse on Instagram.