Not the tiniest challah I’ve ever made, but probably the most intricate small challah, if that makes any sense…   Good yom tov!!!

Disappointing because it was a LOT of work and tasted, well, not extraordinary.  Blah. I was inspired by this beautiful post about an apples-and-honey challah – sounds amazing, right?  Stuffed with apples, it truly is gorgeous – click over and check it out (the one above, left, is mine).  But she doesn’t show you a picture of the inside, so I’ll cut right to the chase and show you that what looks like a TON of apples, going in, totalled to a few straggly bits that didn’t make a noticeable difference to the bread itself. To be totally, TOTALLY fair, I didn’t follow her recipe.  I used Maggie  Glezer’s Czernowitzer Challah, because I’ve used it for stuffed onion/poppy challahs every Purim and it always works out okay.  I think it’s not as sweet a dough, but the texture was also eminently ordinary. Lots of work, though… Chop up apples – the original uses bigger pieces, and perhaps they’d be less juicy if you didn’t cut them so much… and they might not “vanish” into the bread in

Going, going… GONE!

… can make a HUGE difference.  We all say it, but I think this is  the best example of one teeny change that can make a huge difference to my baking life. These are my oven gloves.  You may remember them from when I ordered them .   $8 each, made from kevlar, and oven-safe to 540 degrees I have loved them for almost two whole years and they’re still going strong.  (here’s what they looked like brand-new ! --->) Anyway, they’re perfect… except they keep getting lost.  And I have nowhere good to store them in the chaos that is my kitchen.  Regular oven mitts are usually returned dutifully to the hooks next to the stove, but having nothing “hook-able,” the gloves just get tossed (by me – I admit it!) wherever when baking is done, only to be missing when they’re needed next (often just a couple of minutes later – I am that absent-minded). And then it came to me!  I now crochet !  Just crochet a little loop onto each one and – hey, presto! – an easy shortcut to happy glove sto

Facebook status update:  “No-knead dough meets all-day crock-pot caramelized onions = easy happy pletzel eatin'!” Made the dough last night – basic no-knead recipe, with 1/3 spelt, mostly because I was out of white flour, but also to feel just a teeny bit virtuous despite our second “starch” supper in a row (last night was homemade pasta with home-grown tomato sauce; so sue me). Spent the morning at Humber Arboretum, but I came home to… this: Crock-pot caramelized onions !  Actually, I hadn’t meant to leave the crock-pot on the whole time we were out, because I started them at 1 a.m., and as far as I was concerned, they were ready by breakfast time.  But I don’t think they suffered much for the overcooking, except for looking even more disgusting than they had before. Anyway, they look GREAT spread out on a crust… (This dough was so soft I didn’t bother with a rolling pin.  Just grabbed 1-lb for the cookie sheet and approx 2/3 of a lb (or 3/4?) for the small one, rounded

Well, I have no idea why, but I am putting together a challah bake sale for next Sunday, erev Rosh Hashanah.  With free pickup here or personal hand-delivery in the neighbourhood. Why bother?  No idea.  I suppose there could be some profit in it, along with some stress and – I guess here’s what I’m hoping: lots of fun, kneading (or not), baking, sharing decent bread.   I may have even finagled my sister Sara into coming and baking with me next Sunday.  I’ll let you know how it goes – if not right away.  I have promised delivery between 3-5 pm, and pickup at 4 pm.  These are awfully tight deadlines, considering I’ve been known to still have challah in the oven at the start of Shabbos and Yom Tov, but I have a really good plan to get things rolling very, VERY early in the day.  All I need is a little sleep and maybe someone else to handle the laundry.  ;-) Funny thing – I was looking for a picture of a baked, streuselled round challah I could post on the sale page to tantalize po

I was so excited when I saw that Shoshana of Couldn’t be Parve (one of my favourite kosher food blogs!) had posted this Round Woven Challah Tutorial .  She used beautiful coloured dough – there’s even a video. In previous years , when it comes to round challahs, I have done one of two things:  made a very long  EVEN braid (normally, I make the braids FAT in the middle, but that doesn’t work for round) and then just wrapped it in on itself.   Or… um… just made a big, fat snake, and wrapped it up like a snail.  Easy!  (Plus, that’s what my mother does, so it’s not only easy, it’s a TRADITION!) (click the link above & scroll down to see both models) I’ve always thought of myself as a klutzy,  non-dextrous person, but the truth is that my regular 4-braids come so easily now that I am starting to think maybe I just needed practice all along.  (I have been partly emboldened along the way by various paper-folding things, like Curious George paper boats and these butterflies .) So wh