I love to bake challah, and need some help.  There's a place local to me that sells challah frozen and unbaked.  It's fully braided and ready to go.  You just leave it out to defrost and rise, glaze it with egg, and bake.  I've been trying to do the same thing without success.  I have a wonderful challah recipe that gets rave reviews from everyone who eats it.  But when I freeze the unbaked loaves, they don't come out the same.

There seem to be 2 main problems.  First, the texture is different.  Instead of a nice smooth glossed finish, it gets kind of mottled.  It doesn't impact the taste, but just doesn't look as nice.  The other problem is that the braids frequently meld together.  They are no longer nice and crisp looking.  They kind of flatten out.

I've tried different things.  I increase the yeast by about 1/3 over the regular recipe.  I freeze first, and then put in plastic bags.  I'm just not sure what else I could be doing wrong.  How can I fix this?

Thanks so much for any help you can give me.

Jen