The Challah

After getting home late tonight and realizing that I wasn't quite ready to sit down with the novel Lisa is having me read (Nora Roberts' The Search), I decided to try my hand at challah, a traditional Jewish braided loaf that I'd seen beautiful photographs of in my Williams-Sonoma cookbook but hadn't had time time or guts to try yet.

The idea of a braided loaf begins with manna, a sweet honey-like food thought to have dropped from the heavens as a gift from God to the Iraelites after returning to Egypt after 40 years of exodus. As such, Sabbath and holiday meals in the Jewish tradition begin with the consumption of two complete loaves of bread. The braiding of the bread is characteristic of challah and makes this sweet egg bread instantly recognizable. On Rosh Hashanah, it is sometimes made as a braided circle, symbolizing the completion of another cycle, or year.

Challah is an egg bread, meaning that it is made with a large number of eggs (this recipe called for 2 eggs + 2 yolks), and is sweetened with sugar, honey or molasses (sugar, in this case). It is also brushed with egg wash and sprinkled with sesame seeds, adding to its beautiful brown colouring.

I have been having some major issues with yeast over the last few months. I am sans bread machine and until I can afford it/bribe Santa, sans KitchenAid stand mixer with dough hook. As such, I knead and make bread entirely by hand. To make the task easier and get better results, I went to Tara and got some bread flour (or strong flour, which has a high gluten content, giving bread its characteristic stretch). For some reason unknown to me, I cannot get my bread to leaven properly. I've ruined 3 or 4 different bread recipes using just as many variations on the kneading length (too much kneading can cause the gluten to break down), using fresh yeast packets (I had originally used bulk dry active yeast from Tara and switched to brand new envelopes), using cooler water to proof the yeast, opting out of using sugar to help the yeast along, you name it. I CANNOT get it to go! The bread bakes and tastes ok, but since December I keep baking big ol' bricks of dough that have barely risen, and simply get baked in the interest of time. Some recipes will call for a 12 hour rise, but who has time for that?

Anyhow, so the same problems unfortunately followed me into this recipe. The Joy of Cooking calls for three separate resting periods in which the dough is to rise. I can't imagine that challah, let alone any bread, is meant to be super dense and practically sawed into slices. Nevertheless, the bread tastes amazing and I totally recommend this recipe to anyone who wants to expand his/her bread-making repertoire.

Also, any tips would be GREATLY appreciated.


ps. The recipe used can be found on page 601 of The Joy of Cooking, 75th Edition. Other than the leavening fails, I shortened the second rise to about an hour, and kept it at room temperature.