Overnight Challah, the Results

Challah Braid with Flax Seeds

Who caught the error in yesterday's post? Anyone? Well, I didn't and so things went a little differently then I'd planned.

Braided dough in a ring

Let me illustrate the problem. This was the original ingredient list (before modification) for Peter Reinhart's Challah in Artisan Breads Every Day:

• 510g lukewarm water (about 95 degrees F)
• 1.5 tablespoons of yeast (14g)
• 8-10 egg yokes (170g)
• 5 tablespoons vegetable oil (71g)
• 4.5 tablespoons honey (85g)
• 964g unbleached bread flour
• 19g salt

1.5 tablespoons (14g) is an awful lot of yeast. I'm not sure what Reinhart had in mind for this bread, but I made the bread around 6pm and by about midnight the dough had tripled in size (I was using a half batch and I used less than half of the yeast he asked for-- 0.5tbsp + a small pinch) and was on the verge of collapse. To keep this in perspective, 1.5 tablespoons is the same amount it takes for my old version of challah to raise the bread in 2.5 hours at around 70-72 degrees, which means that the same amount of rising should happen in about 6 -7hours (in my refrigerator which is slightly too warm because it is very old). To be fair, I did also have a bit of sourdough in the dough, but it was primarily for flavoring and usually the sourdough is inhibited by such a large amount of instant yeast. Something obviously went wrong, but I'm not sure what it was.

Servia's traditional braided Challah

So, around 1am, I decided to shape the dough. I was going to stay up and wait for it, but I was too tired, so I put it back in the refrigerator overnight and crossed my fingers that it didn't overproof.

Close up on braiding

Fortunately, when I came down this morning, all seemed to be well. The bread cooked nicely, although the one that was steamed lost its egg sheen during the steaming.

Crumb shot 1

Crumb Shot 2

It doesn't have the same open crumb structure as Reinhart's. Maybe I should have let it rise longer? Who knows. Maybe I'll experiment again sometime. However,  it's not as easy to experiment with challah because it's highly caloric and Servius doesn't like it (i.e. experimentation entails weight gain). However, maybe I'll try it again at some point.

Braiding Close-Up

The Challah tastes amazing. The sourdough didn't taste sour at all, but did definitely add some richness to the flavor.

Overnight Challah

In general, I'm not a huge fan of enriched doughs, but I do love Challah. When I was a kid, most of my friends were Jewish so I went to about 52 barmitzvahs and batmitzvahs over the course of 2.5 years. While I enjoyed parts of the ceremonies, I often looked forward to grabbing a piece of challah afterward.

Challah also was one of the first breads that I made back in my early days of bread baking at school. It was the first no-knead bread I ever baked. Most importantly, it was the first successful bread that I made upon returning home after graduation after a series of incredibly disappointing failures. Mostly out of nostalgia, I have always used this recipe, which was the first one I found. However, I decided to try Peter Reinhart's recipe from Artisan Breads Every Day. Except I couldn't help myself-- I had to modify the recipe (quite substantially).

Challah from Artisan Breads Every Day (significantly adapted)
Makes 1 large loaf or 2 small loaves

Ingredients

• 130g lukewarm water (about 95 degrees F)
• 1/2 tablespoon + a pinch dry active yeast (approximately 5g)
• 4-5 egg yokes (85g) Instead, I used 2 egg yokes and 1 egg. However, had I read the recipe notes, I should have realized that I needed to reduce the amount of water. I didn't so I ended up incorporating a lot more flour. If you want to use whole eggs, reduce the water by about 28g per egg. So in reality, I should have used 2 egg yokes and 2 eggs with 74g water
• 2.5 tablespoons vegetable oil (35g)
• 2.25 tablespoons honey (43g)
• 357g bread flour
• 250g white sourdough starter, 100% hydration
• 1.25 teaspoons salt (9.5g)
• 1 egg white and 2 tablespoons water for egg wash

Directions
Day 1:

• Combine the dry active yeast and the water in a mixing bowl and stir with a whisk to dissolve.
• Add egg yokes (or eggs or both), oil, and honey. Stir to break up the egg yokes.
• Add in the sourdough starter, the flour, and the salt and then mix. In a mixer, mix for about 2 minutes on the lowest speed. By hand, mix with a dough whisk or a wooden spoon for a minuter or two until you form a course, shaggy dough.
• Let the dough rest for 5 minutes.
• If using a mixer, switch to a dough hook for about 4 minutes on medium-low speed. Or, mix by hand or with a wooden spoon for about 4 minutes. Make sure your hands or the spoon are wet.
• Turn the dough onto a very lightly floured surface and knead for 1-2 minutes, or until it passes the windowpane test. Incorporate as much flour as needed to make the dough tacky but not sticky.
• Then, let the dough sit out for about half an hour. It should rise just a little bit. Then put it in the refrigerator overnight or for up to 2 days.

Day 2

•  Remove the dough for the refrigerator 2h10 before baking.
• Transfer the dough onto a lightly floured work surface and cut it into the desired number of pieces. Challah loaves are traditionally braided so if you are making 2 small loaves, divide the dough into 6 equal pieces. 
• Roll the pieces into ropes. The length depends on your own aesthetic, although you want all of the pieces to be the same length. Consider that the bread will increase about 1.5-2 times in size, so don't roll your ropes too thin or too thick.
• Braid the loaves. Braid out from the middle toward each side. This will ensure the proper tapering of your loaves.
• Let the loaves rise, covered, for 2 hours.
• Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F (300 degrees F convection) about 15 minutes before the bread is ready to go in the oven.
• Brush the loaves with egg wash and sprinkle seeds if desired. You can then either load them onto a pan or a peel to be baked on a stone.
• Bake for 35-50 minutes, until the internal temperature is 190 degrees F and the bottom sounds hollow when thumped. If you want, you can steam for the first 20 minutes, but it's probably unnecessary. I will steam one and not steam the other so I can demonstrate the difference.

I haven't finished this project. The loaves will come out of the oven tomorrow so I will post pictures then.

Holiday Challah

The smaller of my two braided loaves.

 I made some Challah for Christmas dinner. I was not planning on making any bread at all because I have not yet had a successful loaf that I have made since I graduated from college, but my mother sweetly encouraged and convinced me to make an easy bread recipe. My favorite no-hassle bread recipe is a Challah recipe from a blog I stumbled across called Tupper Cooks.

Until I ran across this recipe, I had never trusted no-kneed recipes. The first few that I tried produced thick, heavy bread and I decided that "no-kneed" was an altogether bad idea. However, I really wanted to make Challah for some friends for the end of passover, so I decided to try it out. It was perfect! It also made a great impression at Christmas dinner. My braiding is not very practiced, so my loaves are kind of misshapen, but they taste good.

In the oven, on my baking stone.

A picture of the crumb.

The larger loaf.

The smaller loaf.

This afternoon, I had a snack of toasted challah with left-over double-creme brie. Yum!

Note: you may notice, looking at Tupper's recipe, that this bread requires a much lower heat (350 degrees Fahrenheit instead of a more usually 450 degrees Fahrenheit). This, according Wild Bread, is because enriched breads (that include fats-- like eggs and oils-- and/or sugars-- like honey) brown faster and must be cooked at a lower temperature (Rayner 104). I thought that was pretty cool.

Update 12/29/10: I put half of the recipe in the refrigerator to make later (this challah can be toasted to heat it up, but it is much better fresh) . The recipe said that it could be refrigerated fro up to 5 days. I made the second half of it today. It turned out great but there are a couple of notes. First, I braided it right out of the refrigerator. After an hours, the bread had hardly risen at all, so I let it rise for another hour (for a total of 2 hours rising time). It did not rise very much-- only to about half the size of the original loaves. However, when I put it in the oven it had lots of oven spring (i.e. it puffed up a lot in the oven) and was about the same size as the original loaves. It tastes just as good. I highly recommend it!