Notes: The recipe calls for light brown sugar, but if you like a deeper caramel flavor, dark brown sugar is a good sub here.

Texture-wise I found that bread flour is a must. In testing I found that using just one egg makes for a drier dough which necessitated less additional flour during kneading and resulted in a lighter bread even if it's not quite as eggy as traditional challah. To keep the bread parve you can sub margarine for butter and use water in the glaze icing.

Lastly, make sure your instant yeast is lively! I tend to buy a one pound bag which admittedly takes me awhile to go through. At the proofing stage if you're seeing sluggish bubbling after 5 minutes, it's probably time to get new yeast. I've tried this with yeast that was on the verge of expiring and fresh stuff and the difference in the rise was enormous.