And as for the bread chronicles, we had an off week. I must have been asleep when I made the dough this morning, because I forgot the eggs. Whoops. Nate didn't seem to mind. He told me his dough strands (there are 6) were called "roller coasters". Then he proceeded to make his bread into a "zipper". Meantime I have to concentrate really hard to braid the 6 strands and all he does is come in and scrunch the roller coasters together and his turns out beautifully. The result is almost like an epi de ble (for all you food snobs). He proclaimed my bread looked different than his bread at the end. Very astute that boy.
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You are really creating challah art over there! I braid my loaves with four strands. It is much less complex than 6 and looks much better than 3. (years of research, I'm telling you. :)
ReplyDeleteObviously, Nate doesn't need all our input to do this bread thing right... and gosh, Lewis sure does look like his big brother!
PS Can I get your challah recipe. I have my grandmas and it was delicious, but without her standing over me telling me the nuances of the recipe - I am hopeless. It never comes out eggy or fluffy enough. More like a really dense rock!
ReplyDeleteHere's my challah recipe for whoever wants it!
ReplyDeleteMakes 4 smaller challahs or two large ones. (I make 4 smaller ones and it lasts me a month. They freeze well if they are well wrapped.)
For those who care about this: use olive oil or pareve margarine for a pareve challah.
Combine:
2 1/4 cups of warm water
1 tablespoon yeast
1/2 cup sugar
2 eggs
1/2 cup olive oil
OR
1/2 cup (one stick) butter or margarine)
a little salt (1 teaspoon at most)
all-purpose unbleached white flour (I use organic)--enough to make this into a soft dough, roughly 5-8 cups, I think.
Mix it all together and knead gently until you have a soft dough that isn't sticky. You've done enough kneading when you poke at it with your finger and the dough jumps back up again.
Cover with plastic wrap or a damp non textured towel. Allow to rise until doubled, roughly 2-3 hours.
Punch down.
(Say the prayer and pinch off a bit to discard if you're Jewish and doing this to observe the commandment of making challah.)
Oil two cookie sheets. I put foil on my first and oil the foil--the foil can be reused as a freezer wrapper and makes clean up easier.
Divide the dough into 2 or 4 lumps for your loaves. Turn out on a well floured bread board for braiding.
Divide each loaf into 4 (or desired number) of portions for braiding. Make long caterpillar like strips. (roll it in one direction only for best results.) Move the strips to the cookie sheets, braid into loaves.
Cover again. Allow to rise for another 45 minutes-to an hour and a half. Preheat oven to 350.
Beat one egg with a tablespoon of sugar, use this with a pastry brush to coat the loaves with an egg wash. Put on poppyseeds or sesame seeds at this time if you want to.
Bake 4 small loaves at 350 for 25 minutes or 2 larger loaves for 40 minutes. Monitor according to your oven....rotate shelves halfway through for even browning if necessary.
Note: If you're getting dense lumpy challah, you may not have effective yeast, you may have done too short a rising time or the room temperature was too cold, or your flour may have too much gluten in it. (bread flour instead of all-purpose...)
Good luck! Enjoy your challah!
:) Aunt Joanne, longtime challah maker