Challah!

Enter my Challah baloo contest (scroll down a bit, you’ll find it) and you, too might win Baking with Julia, the best baking book ever written. As an example of its awesomeness, I’m going to give you Julia’s challah recipe.

Julia calls challah “Eastern European brioche.” Egg bread, in other words. Few breads have a richer taste, save perhaps a good pumpernickel. Challah isn’t great sandwich bread — it’s a bit too sweet for that — but it’s unsurpassed for bread-and-jam, French toast, bread pudding, or dessert panini. (For my dessert panini recipe, see the comment thread for the contest.) It’s also my bread of choice for just plain eating, no adornments, although I wouldn’t sneeze at a shmear of butter.

In addition to the ingredients below, you’ll need parchment paper, a pizza peel (or a cookie sheet without a raised edge), a food-safe paint brush, an instant read thermometer, and lots of loved ones to share with. This recipe makes TWO big loafs.

Ingredients:

2 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted
1.5 tablespoons active dry yeast
1/2 cup tepid water (80F to 90F)
1/3 cup sugar
1 stick (4 ounces) unsalted butter at room temp.
1 cup whole milk
1 tablespoon mild honey
2.5 teaspoons salt
4 large eggs (I added an extra yolk)
6.5 cups (approximately) high-gluten flour, bread flour, or unbleached all-purpose flour (I used the latter)

1. Coat a large mixing bowl with some of the melted butter. Save the rest for the top of the dough.

2. Whisk yeast into water. Add a pinch of sugar. Let it rest in a warm place until creamy. You don’t have to fully proof the yeast — five minutes will do.

3. Cut the butter into small pieces and put it in a pot with the milk. Heat until the milk is very warm to the touch and the butter has melted. I added the sugar, honey, and salt at this point and stirred until it all dissolved. Check the temperature with your instant read thermometer; if necessary, let it cool. Max temp = 110F.

4. Add yeast to the milk mixture, then stir in the eggs. Beat it all up, what difference does it make? And now you’re going to add the flour, 1/2 cup at a time, stirring vigorously with a STRONG wooden spoon and an even stronger arm.

I used our KitchenAid mixer and it worked like a dream.

You may not need all 6.5 cups of flour. Since I added an extra yolk, I really did need all 6.5 cups. Julia sez: “. . . add flour 1/2 cup at a time, stopping when you have a dough that clears the sides of the bowl and is difficult to stir.”

5. Now, turn the dough out onto a floured board and KNEAD THAT MOFO! (It’s true. Julia calls it a mofo, only she spells it all out. And if you don’t believe me, you’ll just have to win my contest so that you can see for yourself.) Knead until the dough is smooth and elastic, about ten minutes. Since I’m a good kneader, I got to stop at 9 minutes.

If your mixer does a great job of kneading, then knead for 8 to 10 minutes in the mixer. I don’t see any reason why you couldn’t use a bread maker to assist in this step, provided the capacity is sufficient.

6. First rise: put the dough ball into the buttered bowl and brush the top with butter. Put a buttered plastic wrap over the top. Store the whole thing in the warmest part of your kitchen. Let it rise until doubled in bulk, 1 to 1.5 hours. (As usual, I made this on a cold day. So make that 2 hours for me.)

7. Second rise: Punch it down, cover it as before, and then let it double in bulk again, about 45 min to 1 hour (1.5 hours for me).

8. Line two baking sheets with parchment. I used one baking sheet, and I cooked the other loaf on a pizza stone. No diff. Cut the dough in half and keep one-half covered while you work with the other.

Every time I do this, I always kick myself later. Before the second rise, I tell myself, I should have divided the dough into six balls. But I never remember to do it.

9. Divide your half-ball into three smaller balls. Hand-roll each one out into a rope about 16 inches long. Now, braid the three ropes. I can’t tell you how to braid it. If you look down to my challah baloo post and take a close look at that right-hand loaf, you’ll understand why. Yes, I managed to do it properly for the left-hand loaf, but that was more luck than skill. Anyway, when you’re done braiding this one, repeat for the reserved dough ball. You ought to have three ur-challahs. (Proto-challahs? Jurassic challahs?)

Pinch the ends, fold them under, do whatever you think you need to do to keep the ends from splaying. Cover the loaves with plastic wrap and let them rise until doubled in bulk, about 40 minutes.

Glaze and Toppings

1 large egg
1 large egg yolk
1 tablespoon heavy cream
sesame, poppy, and/or caraway seeds (optional)
coarse salt (optional, in my opinion)

Preheat the oven to 375F.

10. Whisk the egg, yolk, and cream together, and push it through a sieve. Brush top and sides of the loaves with glaze, then sprinkle on the toppings, if you’re using them. I don’t like putting salt on top because it’s hygroscopic (it attracts water). Thus, when your challah is a day old, the salty bits have dissolved and the bread is a wee bit damp where the salt crystals were. Yuck. Also, if you overdo it on the salt, your challah might be a little odd for sweeter purposes.

11. Bake for 20 minutes. The loaves will expand, exposing some unglazed bits. Take the loaves out of the oven and paint glaze over the exposed areas. Do this one loaf at a time. Put the loaves back into the oven and bake for another 15-20 minutes. The loaves should be golden brown, and should sound hollow when you thump them on the bottom. Cool on a rack. (If they brown too quickly, cover the top with a piece of foil during cooking.)

12. Breathe deeply to appreciate what baking challah has done for your house’s aroma. Order everyone else to do the same.

13. Let the challah cool before slicing.

14. Storing: once cut, the challah should be kept in a plastic bag. It will keep for two days, after which the stale slices can be used for French toast. You can wrap the second loaf as air-tight as possible and store it in the freezer for up to one month. Thaw (without removing wrapper) at room temperature.

Enjoy!

D.