Cha-llah!

14Feb08

This week felt like a rich bread week, one without the trappings of good health (whole wheat) or specific purpose (pizza dough). I couldn’t bring myself to go for the full-on brioche– too much butter and eggs– but something along those lines seemed appropriate. I wanted something that would go well with marmalade, since I’ve been in a marmalade-producing frenzy since taking a class with June Taylor a couple of weekends ago. I could wax rhapsodic on the subject of bergamots and their delightful aroma, but thats not why I’m here. Challah, that’s the ticket.

I decided to veer away from Peter Reinhart this week and go for the third member (for me, at least) of the holy trinity of bread instruction. Rose Levy Berenbaum, this is your week.

Traditional Challah, from The Bread Bible by Rose Levy Berenbaum

This one takes only a day, but start it early– give the sponge time to develop. Or you can make the sponge the night before. It looks like it contains a heck of a lot of eggs, but this recipe makes a 3+ pound loaf.

Berenbaum gives measurements by volume (i.e. cups), ounces, and grams. For true accuracy, you should weigh all of your ingredients, but that’s tiresome to type out and adds value to the idea of purchasing her book. So I’ll give you the volumetric measurements, but, depending on how hard you dig in to fill a measuring cup with flour, your mileage may vary.

Sponge

1 c. unbleached all-purpose flour

1 t. instant yeast

2/3 c. room-temperature water

2 T. honey

3 large eggs, at room temperature

Mix the sponge ingredients together in a large bowl, then whisk them for about 2 minutes to incorporate air into the batter [I do this by hand]. The sponge will be the consistency of a very thick batter. Set aside.

Flour mixture

4 2/3 c. unbleached all-purpose flour (plus 2-3 T. for kneading)

1¼ t. instant yeast

1 T. salt

Mix these ingredients together in another bowl, adding the yeast to the flour first and mixing, then the salt, to keep the salt from killing the yeast on contact. Sprinkle this mixture on top of the sponge. Cover it tightly with plastic wrap and let it stand for 1-4 hours at room temperature. During this time, the sponge will bubble through the flour mixture.

After letting the dough ferment [I went the full four hours for this step], mix into the sponge/flour mixture:

2 large eggs, cold

1/3 c. corn oil

6 T. honey

1 T. cider vinegar

Mix with the dough hook on medium speed (she recommends #4 on a KitchenAid mixer) for about 5 minutes or until the dough is smooth and shiny. [Blogger's note: either the very wet weather or some kind of measurement mixup caused my dough to need about an extra cup of flour to get it to the "smooth and shiny" stage; it was "sticky and unworkable" without the extra flour. Needless to say, the mixing took longer than five minutes just to test and incorporate the extra flour, but that did not seem to harm the end result.] Lightly sprinkle the counter with flour and scrape the dough onto it. Knead the dough, adding a little flour if necessary [!] so that it is just barely tacky.

Round the dough into a ball [see video of my technique in the successful pizza dough post]. Place the dough into a 4-quart dough-rising container or bowl, lightly greased with cooking spray or oil. Lightly spray or oil the top. Cover the container with a lid or plastic wrap and let rise until doubled, 1-2 hours. [She has a method of telling when it's doubled with a piece of tape on the side of the bowl, but I tend to just eyeball it. Maybe this sort of lack of precision is why I needed the extra flour, but, as I said, the result was really just fine.]

Gently deflate the dough by pushing it down [in other words, don't "punch" it down] onto the counter and giving it a business letter turn [like folding a letter into thirds, fold one third of the dough up onto the center, then the other side]. Put the dough back into the container, oil the surface again, and let rise a second time until doubled, about 45 minutes to an hour.

Flatten the dough by pressing it down gently, so as not to activate the gluten.

[At this point, she explains how to make a three- or four-braided challah. I borrowed a technique from Cooks Illustrated that makes a different, taller shape by stacking two braids (one large, one smaller) atop each other. You could simply make one braid, using all of the dough at once, if this seems to complicated.]

Shape the dough into a braid. For a stacked braid, use a bench scraper to divide the dough into two parts, two-thirds and one-third. Divide these two parts into three sections. Beginning with the larger quantity of dough, roll out out the dough pieces into ropes. If the dough is sticking to the counter, flour it, but only very lightly. It’s best if the dough has some purchase on the counter without actually sticking to it– dough with no traction at all will only slide back and forth on the counter rather than roll out. [All of this is my suggestion-- she is non-specific on the topic of dough traction] You will end up with three rolls:

I usually put them immediately on the baking sheet (side-by-side), since transferring a large braided mass of dough can be the stuff of stretchy, sticky nightmares. Cover the baking sheet with either parchment paper (always a good thing to have on hand for baking) or a silicone mat (I like Silpat for this, it’s a good investment). Then, beginning in the middle, form a braid. Once you’ve reached the end, turn the sheet around and braid the other end. I do it this way because, like Derek Zoolander, I can only braid in one direction. It will look like this:

When you finish one side, bring the ends together and tuck them under the loaf.

Once you finish the first (larger) braid, do the same for the smaller one– roll the dough into ropes, then braid them. Place the smaller braid atop the larger one.

Once the loaf is formed (getting back to Berenbaum’s directions), make an egg glaze out of 2 T. lightly beaten egg and 1 t. of water. Whisk the egg and water together, then brush the loaf lightly with the mixture. Cover the loaf loosely with greased plastic wrap and let rise until doubled, about one hour. Refrigerate the egg glaze in the meantime.

Preheat the oven to 350°F 45 minutes before baking, placing the oven rack at the lowest level. Berenbaum recommends placing a baking stone or baking sheet in the oven. [My oven is small, gas-powered, and only heats from the bottom, so I put one shelf at the lowest level, place a baking sheet on that shelf, then put the second one a level up for the bread. This way, the bread is baking low in the oven, but not so close to the heat source that the bottom burns-- the other baking sheet below deflects the direct heat from the bottom of the pan. I learned this technique by burning things many times. Your oven will probably vary, and you may need to come up with your own tricks to get the appropriate amount of heat in the correct place. Probably by burning something.]

Glaze and bake the challah. Remove the plastic wrap (carefully), then brush the challah thoroughly with the egg glaze once again. Sprinkle with poppy seeds [or sesame seeds], if desired.

Place loaf in oven and bake 20 minutes. At that point, open the oven and place a sheet of heavy-duty aluminum foil over the loaf ["tenting" it to deflect some of the heat from the egg glaze to keep it from getting too dark; honestly, I forgot this step in my preparations]. Continue baking for 25-35 minutes or until the bread is deep golden brown and a skewer inserted into the center comes out clean, or an instant-read thermometer registers about 190°F [if you forget the tenting step, it takes a little less time].

Remove the challah from the oven, transfer to a wire rack to cool. If you can stand it, let it cool completely before slicing.

You can also bake this as two 9″ loaves, if you prefer, but bake only 30-35 minutes.

Once again, I veered off course during the process, but managed to make bread that behaved and tasted right. Berenbaum, like Reinhart, gives pinpoint-precision instructions. This method sends two messages to me: one, that this is a way for beginners to learn to bake bread, and two, that if you make a mistake, all is lost. I agree with the first part– if you follow her instructions to a tee (and I left some of them out of this post, to save space and my aching wrists), it would be difficult to fail. However, for some people this may create anxiety about the process. To those people, I say relax, you can make some mistakes and still create an edible product. Unless you forget the salt. Don’t do that.

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Tags: Challah, precision