Loaf 13 – Challah from Williams-Sonoma

Posted on Jan 29, 2012 in loaves

The second loaf of challah I am making for my “Recipe Bake-Off” is from the Williams-Sonoma Bread book. I’ve had this book for a long time and bake a few things regularly from it, challah being one of them. It’s become a tradition around Christmas for us (what?!). This recipe is very straightforward to make and has consistently given us wonderful bread. In doing the Recipe Bake-Off I’m interested in comparing something new with something I already know.

This recipe makes one loaf, and uses two whole eggs rather than the equivalent of 5 yolks in the other recipe. Also, this is a “done in a day” recipe – from gathering ingredients to taking it out of the oven is about 5 hours, though the vast majority of that is rise and bake time – but it isn’t a bread that can be make after work. There are a few other differences as well which I’ll go into on the taste test post.

After mixing, the dough rose to 2x its size in about 1 1/2 hours, then got punched down and rose again for another hour. I braided this loaf with four ropes to differentiate it from the three strand loaves from the other challah recipe. I’ve done four ropes before, it starts out a little confusing but once you understand the pattern it’s easy. After braiding, it rises for another hour and then gets an egg wash and seeds before going in the oven.

Taste results are in the upcoming Recipe Bake-Off results post.

Lessons

• I noticed “stretch marks” on the bread from when I rolled out the ropes to braid (see close up image below). I haven’t noticed these on prior challah loaves, so I’m not sure if I haven’t cared or this is something new. Perhaps due to having to stretch them more to make four ropes? Was I too rough on them? Would more rise time have helped?