Well, we’re back from the cottage, and here we are, making homemade “cottage challah” last Friday! Eyeballing a very basic, thicker-than-usual dough on Thursday night… Kneading in an impromptu “dough bowl”…   Then, hauling it out for the kids on Friday afternoon!   Mine looked gorgeous!  I’m not used to working with such a firm dough…   We gave the kids raisin packets and I told them they could eat as many as they wanted and use the rest for their challahs.  Naomi painstakingly poked each one in to “hide” it in her dough.     What beautiful challahs! And once again, I forgot to take pictures of the finished product!  They were a little drier than usual, and not as sweet as I like them, but they were warm and fresh, and THAT is a lovely thing in itself, in the midst of a crazy-busy cottage week.

The only difference between these two flatbreads is that I used lots of olive oil on the “focaccia” one, along with tomatoes and lightly-fried zucchini; the pletzl was made with milder canola oil, along with caramelized onions and poppy. Baked 10 minutes at 500 degrees, they were both amazingly good!

I came across a recipe for Blender Challah yesterday and the name just DREW me in.   A blender!  For challah!  It just sounded so cool! It’s not quite as exciting as it sounds.  You use the blender for maybe 20 seconds at the beginning.  Basically, you make a slurry with all the ingredients, plus 1/3 of the flour, in a blender (I used my Cuisinart food processor) then stir the slurry into a bowl of dry flour.  This is almost what I do with no-knead doughs, except I use my Danish Dough Whisk , so the slurry doesn’t get as well-mixed, I suppose.  And I don’t pre-mix some of the flour – just dump it in all at once. So I guess this recipe gives you a well-mixed base, probably better mixed than the no-knead, and ultimately a not-overmixed, probably cakey-type dough.  It appealed to me in part because we’re having a Rock-Bottom Shabbos where there is no grocery money so I have to make a smaller batch than usual.  Blender Challah calls...

Recipe here if you’re curious, but truthfully, this wasn’t an outstanding bread… possibly because (mea culpa) my barley flour had actually expired.  That may explain the slight bitter taste that only I could detect, though that may just be an effect of barley in general. What WAS nice was having my hands in a lump of dough again.  This dough was beautiful to work with; silky-smooth and damp, but not too damp.  The recipe made two beautiful bâtards, just enough for the family plus a bit left over. Served with a nondescript soup, this was not my best bread meal ever… but definitely not the worst, by far.   Slashed deeply, I thought, but not deeply enough…   … to really open up during baking or…   … to prevent a wee bit of a blowout out the side. Sliced beautifully, though!   And it was quite nice with a bit of butter.  But then, what isn’t ? So why is it that warm weather seemingly gives me this compulsion to work with BRE...

More pics from erev Shavuos… making my grandmother’s Neapolitan Cake .  She was not impressed to be the fourth generation making this cake, but I was. Pressing the cookie dough into the pans.  This would probably make AMAZING cookies, by the way.  Just regular cookies.  Check out the recipe – it goes together SO quickly and easily!   She also helped mix the pudding, but I didn’t get a picture of that step.  Here, she’s dumping toasted almond slices haphazardly on top until I stopped her and told her to spread them out a little more… Delicious!

Here it is… the Buttermilk-Parmesan Herb Bread from Shavuos! Shaped and resting … Risen nicely – thanks to the scorching hot day…     Baked and delicious! With all that milk and cheese, the crust was much softer than I usually like, but the bread makes up for it (yes, there are still leftovers) by being extremely flavourful and tender.  Mmm, indeed!

All-dairy Shavuos means Buttermilk-Parmesan Herb Bread!!! (adapted from Artisan Bread in Five, of course!) The herbs above are golden oregano, sage, thyme and (hard to see) chives. The chives made a huge mess when I tried to purée them in the small chopper. I really should have just chopped them by hand… :-( Anyway, here’s the basic formula I’m using: Herbs, above, puréed with a bit of oil 1755g (13 cups) a.p. flour 1 1/2 tablespoons yeast 1 1/2 tablespoons salt 1 1/2 tablespoons sugar 2 cups lukewarm water 2 cups buttermilk (subbed 2 cups milk w/2 Tbsp vinegar added, let rest 5 minutes) 1 cup parmesan cheese Mix, rest, shape, bake.