Loaf 12 – Challah from Reinhart
Fresh out of the oven. Pretty loaf closest.
I’m making two different versions of challah bread this weekend in my own “Recipe Bake-Off.” This version is from Peter Reinhart’s Artisan Breads Every Day book.
The dough is mixed, then does a slow fermentation overnight in the fridge. The next day it is shaped and risen at room temperature before baking.
Though it’s 24 hours from start to finish, the hands-on time is pretty fast. Yesterday’s mixing step took half an hour from getting out the ingredients to finishing cleaning up. The actual mixing time was less that 15 minutes. From taking it out of the fridge today to finished baking was just under 3 hours, with most of that being rise and bake time.
In addition to flour, water, yeast and salt, challah bread also has eggs, oil and sugar in it. This recipe, for two loaves, uses eight egg yolks, 1/4 cup oil and 6 tbsp of sugar. The dough ended up being wetter and stickier that the book said it should be, but I’m sticking with my method of going direct from the recipe the first time I make something; it’s possible I should have added some additional flour to get the consistency correct.
The dough was quite busy overnight – it was supposed to double in size, but it was at least 3x (see the attached images). Per the book I boosted up the yeast 25% because I was using Active Dry rather than Instant – that may be the root of the extra growth; or perhaps more flour would have helped keep it under control.
I’ve make challah bread many times before (see Loaf 13, coming up), so I’m good at the shaping and braiding part. The finshed loaves are beautiful even before baking.
The recipe makes two loaves, and I baked them at the same time. Even though I switched shelves halfway through to even out the baking, the loaf that started on the bottom shelf “fell” during baking. It’s definitely the ugly twin. I’m assuming that the slower start to baking causes it to spread out wide and tear rather than inflate properly – I’ll look into this.
Taste results will be in a subsequent post comparing the two different challah recipes.
Lessons
- I would like to know if I should have made the dough tacky instead of sticky. Would this have lessened the overnight rise? Would it have given more rise in the “oven pop” and shaped the loaves better? So much to learn…
- There really is a big difference between the shelves in the oven. As a solution I can either bake one loaf in the middle, or try using the convection option.
- Regarding the second loaf spreading out too much, I just read two methods to use to help prevent this from happening:
- Don’t overproof the loaf. It’s possible I was letting it rise too long before baking.
- Braid loosely. My braids were very tight, and I compressed the loaves after braiding. Looser braids give the individual ropes more room to expand before melding together.
I’ll definitely give those suggestions a try next time.
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- Initial mixing of the ingredients. The egg yolks add a lot of yellow.
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- Mixed dough, ready to pull an all nighter.
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- Whoa. That’s at least 3x bigger after 12 hours in the fridge.
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- Dough divided into 1/6ths, 3 here rolled out for braiding.
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- First loaf after braiding.
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- Second loaf rolled and braided, five minutes later.
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- Egg wash painted on the loaves before rising. This will make a nice brown crust.
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- Second egg wash and seeds added just before baking.
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- In the oven.
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- Fresh out of the oven. Pretty loaf closest.
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- The ugly twin. Started baking slower on the bottom shelf, causing it to spread out and split. Kind of looks like a dead bug.
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- Reinhart recipe challah.
