BRAIDED"EVERYTHING" CHALLAH
A combination of two very good bakes.
Hi everyone!
Thanks so much for being here and for contributing to the future of How I Cook, this wouldn’t be possible without you…
So, this week, we’re baking. I really fancied making a bread but didn’t have heaps of time so wanted to avoid anything too finicky or complex. Challah is such a great entry level enriched loaf that comes together very quickly, has a gorgeous, tender texture and looks rather impressive.
I’ve bunged some “everything” seasoning on top for a little twist. It’s like a big, soft, pillowy loaf that tastes like a bagel. A great bake for brunch.
Break out the lox!
B x
CHALLAH!
This is great bread to whip up if you’re new to enriched doughs and fancy learning to do some slightly more complex bread shaping.
Whilst looking impressive, Challah is a deceptively easy bread to make. You follow a sort of all-in-one method, dumping all the ingredients into a bowl and just mixing ‘em up. After you’ve made your dough, you then follow a pretty classic routine of bulk proof, shape, another proof and then bake. Super simple! There’s no emulsification of softened butter or any fancy preferments. You can be done, start to finish, in about 2 and half hours.
Why is it so speedy? Well, challah recipes often have a very high yeast content. In a regular white bloomer recipe, for say 500g of flour, you’ll usually use between 5-7g of dried yeast (between 1-1.5%). When making challah, you can use up to 2.5% yeast to the weight of flour. It might not seem like a lot, but that’s a big jump! Thanks to this, the dough rises super fast. If you like a more subtle, developed yeasty flavour, you can lower the yeast content and give the bread a longer ferment. But today, we’re after a speedy loaf. Get up at 8am and you can have hot and fresh challah on the table by 11am, just in time for brunch!
SHAPING
I grew up with two sisters, so I can plait hair. If you can plait hair, you can braid a loaf. Believe it or not, it’s much easier…
You can go for a 3, 5 or even 7 strand braid when making a loaf like this. Today we’re keeping it simple with a 3 strand braid. It’s very, very easy to do. I’ve made a little GIF for you to follow. Now I like to divide my dough into 6 completely equal pieces (this recipe will make two loaves), using a digital scale to check for accuracy. You don’t have to do this, but if you want the prettiest plait in class, bust out the scales.
Before you get to the braiding part, you’ve got the roll the dough into sausages. Now, this isn’t quite as straight forward as rolling playdough into a log, so don’t go rushing into it. If you get this bit wrong, you can end up with an uneven proof and some odd holes in your crumb once baked. I’ll go through it with you shortly.
A BRIEF LESSON IN YEAST
I intended to make this last week for the newsletter, and during testing, made the fatal error of not checking the use by date on my yeast. The result? A few wasted hours waiting for a dough to rise that was never going to rise. It’s almost as disappointing as making bread and forgetting to put the salt in, which happens more than you’d think in professional kitchens. I’ve done it a handful of times, turning out beautiful loaves of brioche or focaccia, only to have a taste and find it achingly bland. Disaster!
Always check your use by date and if you’re using one of the tins of yeast, write the date you opened it on the side. If it was over 6 months ago? Time for a new tin.
“EVERYTHING” SEASONING
This stuff reminds me of living in New York, muscling my way to the front of the bagel shop line and not having a clue what to order. I usually went for poppy seed, but one day I heard someone order an “everything”. What the hell is that?!
Well, it’s for people who want every single flavour of bagel the shop does, it’s a plain bagel, combined with a poppy seed bagel, smashed into a sesame bagel and infused with a garlic bagel and an onion bagel. Incredible.
You can buy some really nice premade everything seasonings these days, but don’t be fooled, it’s so easy to make the classic mix. To whip up an everything seasoning; Add 1.5 tbsp each of black sesame, white sesame & poppy seeds to a bowl. Add 1 tbsp each of garlic granules, onion granules and flaky salt. Mix together and Bob’s your uncle.
You want to use untoasted sesame (they’ll toast in the oven) and please use onion and garlic granules rather than powder! Powder is far too fine and will simply sink to the bottom of your mix. It’ll also burn in the oven.
FAKE BAGELS ‘N LOX
I served up a little DIY challah, cream cheese, lox situation at the office the day after I baked these loaves. It’s a lovely change from bagels and has a little more drama. Bagels are known for their chew, whereas challah is just so beautifully soft and tender, it makes for a slightly more luxe eating experience with salmon and cream cheese. Serve some chopped chives or torn dill and a wedge of lemon, on the side.
This is not an ad, but I bought the Paysan Breton flaky salt cream cheese and my god, was it good.
