The Wettest Challah Dough

This is another stab at blender challah, but it turned out super-wet, for some reason, skirting that fine line between soft, wet dough and extra-firm cake batter.

Here’s the formula – super-simple and quick, once you’ve weighed everything out:

Mix in blender:   
401    g flour
711    g water
189    g sugar
156    g oil
40    g salt
21    g yeast
3     large eggs

Pour over in bowl:
802    g flour

Stir with dough whisk, wooden spoon, or really anything.  Let rise, etc.

I definitely should have done the Stretch and Fold move on this dough after it had risen, but I was in a hurry and figured I can do anything with even the wettest of doughs.  Even with stretching and folding, I still wouldn’t have been able to let the kids help out with this dough, which they were very disappointed by.  I promised that next week they could help.

Here’s what the pieces looked like (I use 4x170g pieces to make one 1.5-lb “standard” challah) once I pancaked them with the rolling pin, then rolled them up into “slugs” to give them some structure.  Still mighty floppy; you can see that they’ve already started spreading out onto the table.  The piece above (on the red silicone scraper) is the separated “challah,” which totally turned into an amorphous blob – kinda like how I felt when I woke up this morning...

    

Thanks to lots of oil spread on the table and my hands, I rolled them out pretty well into these ugly-looking snakes, which actually held up okay once they were braided.  The more you work the dough, the stronger it gets.

  

Forgot to get a picture going into the oven, but at least I remembered to capture those all-important FINISHED shot that I always forget.  The braids lost a little definition (probably would have lost all of it if they weren’t in loaf pans!), but otherwise rose up high and tanned quite nicely.  This always makes me think of how forgiving bread is, that you can start off with such an undesirable soupy glop and still end up with extraordinary bread, even if it isn’t the most photogenic I’ve ever made.

  

Good Shabbos, world!