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Challah

November 26, 2009 at 12:57 pm (Recipes) (bread, Recipes)

I never encountered challah until I visited the US for the first time. In Maryland, I believe, when the girlfriend and I were staying with friends of hers and their two gorgeous, vicacious children who must be grown by now. Just as lovely, but a lot can happen in two years.  Anyway, the children were lovely, hosts gracious, and the food incredible. Along with all these adjectives, there was challah–which, to an Australian lapsed Catholic from the nothern suburbs of Melbourne, was something of a revalation.

I’m sure it exists in Melbourne, but I have yet to find the right bakeries, and in the end my cravings for it overcame a long fear of any breadmaking that didn’t result in pizza bases. For years, while I’ve managed to produce more than half decent pizza from scratch,  I have also tried rolls and twists and loaves. These have uniformly become baked objects that, in a flagging world, might stand in as currency. Or shotput.

What changed this, it seems, was challah. More particularly, it was Deb’s challah, from the inimitiable Smitten Kitchen. (Seriously. This site is incredible. Go just for the food porn.)

Deb’s bread making tips are invaluable (short, warm risings? Leave a lot to be desired) and, while the results of my first challah were surely not the most professional to be seen–I can’t even braid my own hair, let alone heavily enriched bread dough–it was still delicious, consumed by my Hoard of a family in a matter of hours, and was a transformation from this:

to this:

So, as the first food post for this blog, I’d like to share the slightly adapted recipe.

Time: about 1 hour, plus 2 1/2 hours’ rising
Yield: 2 loaves

1 1/2 packages active dry yeast (1 1/2 tablespoons). Also known as instant yeast.

1/2 cup sugar + 1 tablespoon extra

1/2 cup olive oil, plus more for greasing the bowl

5 large eggs

1 tablespoon salt

8 to 8 1/2 cups all-purpose flour (I used a relatively high gluten baker’s flour)

1/2 cup raisins per challah, if using, soaked for 30 minutes in hot water (one tablespoon sherry added to the water is optional)  and drained

1. In a large bowl, dissolve yeast and the 1 tablespoon of sugar in 1 3/4 cups lukewarm water.

2. Whisk oil into yeast, then beat in 4 eggs, one at a time, with remaining sugar and salt. Gradually add flour. When dough holds together, it is ready for kneading.

3. Turn dough onto a floured surface, knead until smooth. This will take about ten to twenty minutes by hand, depending upon the weather and the amount of rage you’re feeling that day. If you can stretch the dough out thin before it tears, it’s ready.  Clean out bowl and lightly grease with olive oil, then return dough to bowl. Cover with plastic wrap, and let rise in a draught free area for 1 hour, until almost doubled in size. (Dough may also rise in an oven that has been warmed to 150 degrees then turned off.)  Punch down dough, cover and let rise again in a warmish place for another half-hour.

4. At this point, you can knead the raisins into the challah, if you’re using them, before forming the loaves. Place loaves on baking tray of choice.

5. Beat remaining egg and brush it on loaves. Either freeze breads or let rise another hour.

6. If baking immediately, preheat oven to 190 degrees celsius (that’s 375 to you Americans) and brush loaves again. If freezing, remove from freezer 5 hours before baking.

7. Bake in middle of oven for 30 to 40 minutes, or until golden. (If you have an instant read thermometer, you can take it out when it hits an internal temperature of 87.5  [190-f] degrees, according to Deb. I, sadly, lack such gadgetry) Cool loaves on a rack.

8. Consume. Pour self a drink.