Making Auntie Sally’s Challah

Here it is… I’m making this old family recipe (or at least, an old family-member’s recipe) as I said I would this Shabbos, and although I have said all along that I don’t like an eggy challah, hers is a delight to knead, as are many rich doughs. 

The texture of this dough is quite supple:  smooth, even a bit glossy.  There’s a sheen that doesn’t quite come across in these pictures.  More like Silly Putty than Play-Doh, if that’s helpful.

breaddo 027 breaddo 028 breaddo 029

It’s a very heavy dough:  with four and a half eggs, a cup of oil and a cup of sugar, I mean that quite literally.  I was surprised that it seemed to tire my hands out a bit quicker than other challah doughs.

Here, Ted continues to hold the camera (those are his pictures above) and pretend to be impressed while I demonstrate the Gluten Windowpane, stretching out the dough into a rectangle to reveal – gasp! – my hand on the other side! 

Besides being a cool trick, this shows us that the dough is ready for its first nap.

This recipe calls for THREE rises – 1) resting the dough, kneading again, 2) resting again, kneading again, resting again, THEN finally shaping the challah.  Phew!

Oh – before I forget, here’s the formula that I used this evening:

  • · 8 cups of flour = 1120g
  • · 1 cup of sugar + 1 tsp for proofing yeast = 200g (+ 1 tsp!)
  • · 1 cup of oil = 220g no, I measured and this was more like 210g
  • · 1 tsp salt = 4.8g
  • · 5 eggs, divided: 4 for the challah, 1 white for the challah, 1 yolk reserved for painting the challahs at the end
  • · 4 tsp yeast = 24g
  • · 2 cup of water, divided: 1 cup (240g) to proof the yeast, 1 more (240g) “if you need it.”

It was too dry, so I added 2/3 cup of water – too much!  Then added just a “sprinkle” of flour so I could keep on kneading, and it was just right.

Final dough weight: 2205g.  (technically, 205g more than my scale can take!!!)

Comments

Post a Comment

Okay, guys... I'm turning moderation OFF on all my blogs. I will be patrolling for spam, so play nice!

Know what else you're gonna love?

Baking in Israel? Beware of FAKE condensed milk

Image
If you didn’t know any better – like I didn’t when we first came here – you’d probably assume, with good reason, that both of these tins contained condensed milk: But that’s where you’d be wrong.  Sure, at least at first glance, the Hebrew text is exactly the same: חלב מרוכז וממותק / chalav merukaz umemutak / concentrated sweetened milk.  But the English is different, and therein lies the key difference between the two – the one on the right is FAKE. Here are the ingredients of the real thing (on the left): Milk (55%), sugar (45%).  That’s it.  Pure and simple. Now, here are the ingredients
Read more

Easy, tender, and affordable roast in Israel… yes, it IS possible!

Image
I wasn’t a big meat cook in Canada.  We ate a lot of chicken, but I was kind of shy about beef.  Still, I managed to make some acceptable roasts from time to time – meat that was tender enough and tasty enough that we could enjoy it together on special occasions. All that changed when we moved to Israel, where all the meat cuts are different from what I was used to and nothing, it seemed, was tender and tasty except the most expensive bits, like steak (which always seems to turn out tough when we make it at home, but we don’t mind because it’s delicious). But some of the English speakers here were chatting on our WhatsApp group last week about roasting beef, and it made me really want to try it again –even after having been burned numerous times.  So on Thursday evening, we bought a nice little #6 roast, which according to this indispensible meat chart is called Fillet Medumeh (פילה מדומה), petit tender, or foreshank.  The page's owner, Marc Gottlieb, says it’s good for “G
Read more

Super-Easy Thick, Spreadable, Bakeable DIY Cream Cheese in Israel

Image
Cream cheese can be a hit or miss affair here in Israel.  Sure, some brands are okay for eating, but where the native product fails is usually when it comes to baked goods that call for genuine cream cheese, as I discovered at Shavuos a couple of years ago.  It's too thin, too gummy, too shiny, whatever.  It's just... WRONG. In case you’re wondering, sour cream is called “krem gevina shamenet,” and as you can see, there are lots of flavour choices… …but none of them are anything I’d want to bake into a cheesecake. But then this year, I found out I could make my own.  And not only does it taste great, it works perfectly in recipes! I won't bother calling it a RECIPE, because it's too easy to be a recipe!  It only works if you're in Israel, simply because you can’t get Israeli dairy products here.  Then again, if you're outside of Israel, you can probably just buy Philly.  The truth is, you can buy Philly here in a lot of places as well, as well as s
Read more

More delicious kosher morsels!

Show All