{"id":532,"date":"2012-01-31T20:17:37","date_gmt":"2012-02-01T04:17:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/anirama.com\/100loaves\/?p=532"},"modified":"2012-04-04T16:23:06","modified_gmt":"2012-04-04T23:23:06","slug":"challah-recipe-bake-off-results","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/anirama.com\/100loaves\/challah-recipe-bake-off-results\/","title":{"rendered":"Challah Recipe Bake-Off Results"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

Challah loaves - Reinhart, left; Williams-Sonoma, right.<\/p><\/div>\n

Loaves 12 and 13 were both challah breads made from different recipes. Loaf 12 was from Peter Reinhart’s Artisan Breads Every Day book, and Loaf 13 was from Williams-Sonoma Collection: Bread. I’ve made the W-S challah quite a few times, and this was my first time making the Reinhart challah.<\/p>\n

Recipe Differences<\/h3>\n

Reinhart’s recipe takes longer because the dough rises in the fridge overnight, but overall is about a three hour process. The W-S can be done in a day, but is about a five hour process. The actual amount of time spent with each recipe is only about an hour. Neither one is difficult, despite the beautiful results.<\/p>\n

I was interested in doing both recipes side by side because of the different ratios of ingredients. Below is a table with the ingredients for comparison. The “Ratio” column is a normalized difference – in other words, if they both used the same amount of flour how would the amount of the other ingredients compare? (The Reinhart recipe makes two loaves, the W-S makes one slightly larger loaf.) The Reinhart recipe uses 30% more water and almost 3x the amount of eggs, along with much more yeast. Additionally, the Reinhart recipe only uses the egg yolks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<\/colgroup>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
Ingredient<\/td>\nWilliams-Sonoma<\/td>\nReinhart<\/td>\nRatio<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Flour (g)<\/strong><\/td>\n700<\/td>\n964<\/td>\n1.0x<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Water (oz)<\/strong><\/td>\n10<\/td>\n18<\/td>\n1.3x<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Yeast (tbsp)<\/strong><\/td>\n1<\/td>\n2<\/td>\n1.5x<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Sugar (tbsp)<\/strong><\/td>\n4<\/td>\n6<\/td>\n1.1x<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Eggs<\/strong><\/td>\n2 (whole)<\/td>\n8 (yolks)<\/td>\n2.9x<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Oil (oz)<\/strong><\/td>\n2<\/td>\n2.5<\/td>\n0.9x<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Salt (tsp)<\/strong><\/td>\n1.5<\/td>\n2.5<\/td>\n1.2x<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Vanilla (tbsp)<\/strong><\/td>\n<\/td>\n1<\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

<\/h3>\n

Results<\/h3>\n
\"\"<\/a>

Challah loaves - Reinhart, top; Williams-Sonoma, bottom.<\/p><\/div>\n

Appearance<\/h4>\n

Other than a different braiding pattern (3 vs. 4 ropes) and different sizes, the loaves’ external appearance was very similar. The Reinhart loaves parted at the seams, but that may be a difference between three and four rope braids. The W-S loaf showed some “stretch marks” from rolling out the ropes that I haven’t noticed when I made that recipe before.<\/p>\n

Internally, the colors were very different. Predictably, the use of more eggs and only yolks in the Reinhart recipe made a huge difference in giving the bread the distinctive yellow coloring of challah bread. In comparison it made the W-S recipe look absolutely white. The crumb quality was nearly identical between the two loaves.<\/p>\n

Smell and Taste<\/h4>\n

I was surprised that the W-S loaf had a much stronger yeast smell, even though the Reinhart loaf had 50% more yeast. The Reinhart loaf initially smelled odd to me, but then I realized it smelled much more like an omelet than like bread – this was initially a bit off-putting, but once I recognized the source it didn’t bother me. Either the yeast in the Reinhart loaf mellowed by the long, slow rise, or it was masked by the eggs.<\/p>\n

The flavors were unique, with the egg flavor coming through quite strongly in the Reinhart loaf. In comparison, the W-S loaf seemed bland. The Reinhart’s flavor was particularly nice the next morning toasted.<\/p>\n

Taste comparison is definitely a significant thing to do, when I’ve make the W-S challah in the past it always seemed to have a very distinctive flavor, but that was overpowered here by the Reinhart souffl\u00e9.<\/p>\n

Conclusion<\/h3>\n

This round goes to Reinhart for its distinctive color and flavor. But… I wouldn’t hesitate to make the Williams-Sonoma challah again if I needed it done in a day.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Loaves 12 and 13 were both challah breads made from different recipes. Loaf 12 was from Peter Reinhart’s Artisan Breads Every Day book, and Loaf 13 was from Williams-Sonoma Collection: Bread. I’ve made the W-S challah quite a few times, and this was my first time making the Reinhart challah. Recipe Differences Reinhart’s recipe takes […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":573,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,9],"tags":[27,46],"class_list":["post-532","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-loaves","category-recipes","tag-challah","tag-reinhart"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/anirama.com\/100loaves\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/532","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/anirama.com\/100loaves\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/anirama.com\/100loaves\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anirama.com\/100loaves\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anirama.com\/100loaves\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=532"}],"version-history":[{"count":44,"href":"https:\/\/anirama.com\/100loaves\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/532\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1253,"href":"https:\/\/anirama.com\/100loaves\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/532\/revisions\/1253"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anirama.com\/100loaves\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/573"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/anirama.com\/100loaves\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=532"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anirama.com\/100loaves\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=532"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anirama.com\/100loaves\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=532"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}