Ethnic Flavor: The Last Braid of the Year

Welcome back to the land of blogging, us! What, you didn't notice we were gone? Guess we're less important than we thought. 

Rosh Hashanah starts in less than sixty hours. Like all the pre-Purim holidays this year, it's crazy early (the first night of Hanukkah is on Thanksgiving, so get ready for turkey followed by jelly donuts - maybe jelly donuts filled with cranberry sauce?) One of the food traditions for Rosh Hashanah is that for whole month of Tishrei (the month that contains Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur, Sukkot, and Simchat Torah), we eat challah that's round, instead of the traditional braid. This past Friday, I made challah for a nice, quiet dinner with Rachel and our dad, since our mom is in Los Angeles with Rebecca. I didn't have a lot of time to make it because I got home on the late side on Thursday night, so I was really happy to find a recipe that requires a lot less rising time than recipes that I've used in the past. It calls for letting the dough rise in a heated oven, which very much cuts down on the rising time. It's from the beautiful Entree to Judaism, a cookbook my friend Amelia gave me for my birthday, which features Jewish recipes from all over the world. The challah recipe actually was a round challah High Holidays recipe, but I braided it instead.

The other unusual thing about this recipe is that it calls for butter or margarine instead of oil. I used Earth Balance margarine, which is almost indistinguishable from butter, and we could really tell when we tasted the challah! Normally, challah comes in two flavor varieties--water (which is more bread-like) or egg (which is more cake-like)--but with this I think I've discovered a new flavor: buttery! It wasn't brioche-level or anything, nor should it be, but it was still extremely tasty and different. I halved the recipe for one loaf and didn't include the food coloring, but it still came out beautifully, in my opinion. Here's the recipe: 

Ingredients:
7–8 cups bread flour, divided use
2 packages rapid rise yeast
1 1/2 cups water
2 sticks pareve margarine, butter, or 1/2 cup oil and 1 stick margarine
1/4 teaspoon yellow food coloring
3/4 cup sugar
2 tablespoons poppy seeds (optional)
1 tablespoon salt
4 large eggs
1 cup raisins (optional)
Egg wash: 1 egg mixed with 1 tablespoon water

Directions: 

In a large mixer bowl combine 6 cups of the flour and the yeast. Stir to combine.

Heat the water, margarine, food coloring, sugar, poppy seeds, and salt in a saucepan until very warm (140°F). Water should be uncomfortably hot to your finger but not hot enough to burn you. (It will feel like hot tap water.

Add the warm liquid mixture to the flour while the mixer is on low. As the liquid is being incorporated, add the eggs. Mix thoroughly.

Gradually add the remaining flour only until a fairly firm dough is formed. This process should take about 7 minutes whether you are using the dough hook on your mixer or are kneading it by hand. The mixture will be satiny smooth.

Preheat your oven to 400°F for 1 minute. Lightly grease a bowl with some oil, and turn the dough in the bowl to oil all sides. Cover with plastic wrap and place in the turned off oven until doubled in size, about 30–45 minutes.

Punch down the dough and divide in half or in thirds. Roll each piece into a rope about 15 inches long. Hold one end 2 inches above the work surface and wrap the rest of the dough around it to make a large coil. Pinch the ends together to prevent unraveling while baking. Place the formed breads on parchment-lined or greased cookie sheets, and let rise in the previously warmed oven until light and doubled, about 25 minutes.

Remove loaves from oven and reduce to 375°F. Brush the tops of the loaves with the egg wash and bake for 25–35 minutes, depending on the size of the loaves. When the bread is done, it will be golden brown and have a hollow sound when tapped.

Not Pretty, but Totally Delicious: Four Star Chocolate Pretzel Challah Bread Pudding

Some things are really hard to photograph.  Bread pudding is one of them.  It just looks like a mushy, lumpy mess.  But let me tell you -- this is the best tasting mushy, lumpy mess I have ever tasted.  This is Dorie Greenspan's Four Star Chocolate Bread Pudding, which I made with an LA specialty, pretzel challah.  Pretzel challah is challah on the inside, but with a soft-pretzel crust on the outside.  Yummy.

Every week, my son's preschool has a fundraiser where you can buy a challah for Shabbat.  Since we love challah and we want to support the school, we signed up.  However, it has meant that our freezer often gets super full of challah because we don't always have Shabbat dinner at home.  This bread pudding came about because I simply could not fit another challah in the freezer and I'm so glad I made it.  It takes about 10 minutes to throw together (if you don't count the time waiting for the bread to become stale) and the only complicated thing about it is that it is baked in a water bath, so you need a pan big enough to hold a 9x13 inch pan.

This was completely delicious and decadent   I loved the combination of the slightly salty pretzel challah with the sweet and chocolatey pudding.  It was a real treat.  If you find yourself with an extra pretzel challah, I highly recommend making this, although I assume it would be delicious with any kind of bread.  You can find the recipe here.

Ethnic Flavor: Well, I Tried

Whenever Rachel and I go to LA, we are treated to the wonderful pretzel challah from Got Kosher? Rebecca, of course, lives in LA, so she can have pretzel challah any time she wants! And now, with the magic of boiling water and baking soda, so can you!


One of my oldest childhood friends moved to Chicago today. She is going to make the world a better place through teaching sixth grade math, and everyone should wish her the best of luck! She came to my house for a long-delayed Shabbat dinner on Friday, and I thought that in her honor, I would make these tasty loaves. I found the recipe in Kosher By Design: Teens and 20-somethings, which my parents thoughtfully bought for me when I moved out of their apartment. 


I titled this post "Well, I Tried," not because of the taste of the challah (amazing) but rather the way it looks, which is totally wonky and strange. I had a lot of trouble extracting the loaves after I dipped them in the boiling mixture, and one ended up kind of weirdly extended while the other one just got completely misshapen. But whatever. Salt! How can you go wrong? (But if you have a better method for extracting them than desperately and spastically maneuvering two spatulas, do let me know.) I halved the recipe and made two loaves but the challot stretched out in the water and were fairly sizable. I doubt that larger loaves would have fit in my boiling solution, but if you have a wider-mouthed pot, be my guest. Also, the dough is very sticky with only 3 (or 6, if you make the whole recipe) cups of flour, so be sure that your hands and your surface are well-floured when you braid the loaves.


As I said, it tasted amazing; plus, it takes less time to rise than my usual challah recipe, so good if you're in a hurry. There's a distinct baking soda taste - unsurprising, in a recipe that involves 2/3 cup of baking soda. It's definitely best warm but I found that it was still moist and delicious the next day. There was no next day after that; Brianna and I ate an entire loaf between us on Friday night, and then my roommates and I made short work of the rest on Saturday. You can find the recipe here; now you don't have to go all the way to Los Angeles to get your fix!

Turkey Challah for Thanksgiving Shabbat

I saw this turkey challah on a blog and I knew I just had to try it.  It seems like the perfect challah for Shabbat of Thanksgiving, and it is super adorable.  All you do is make a batch of your favorite challah dough (we used this one) and after it rises, cut it into 4 pieces.  Shape one piece into an oval to use for the body.  Cut one piece in half to use for the head and cut the remaining pieces into small balls to use for the feathers.  Roll the small pieces into balls and place them around the head and body to create feathers.  You can use any leftovers to make the turkey's nose and feet.  We used two chocolate chips for the eyes.  This was really fun to make and super easy.  Thanks to Ariella of Sweet Happy Life for the great idea.  She makes lots of really cool shaped challahs that I can't wait to try now that I know how easy it is.

Here's a shot of my little one working on the egg wash (apologies for the photos, they were taken on my phone)...

Happy Thanksgiving and Shabbat Shalom!