Challah

It's hard for me to believe that I used to be intimidated by baking with yeast. For some reason it used to seem too intense to have to worry about the intricacies of activating the yeast and wondering whether the yeast would achieve the appropriate lift in whatever I was baking. So, my early baking years were spent honing my skills in the kitchen by baking quick breads. Eventually I found that I could only bake so many loaves of banana bread and craved a new challenge in the kitchen - yeast! This also coincided with my acquisition of a bread maker, which opened my eyes to the fact that yeast is not scary or intimidating at all - it's easy and interesting. Oh, and the fact that my husband has spent the past decade working with yeast while studying chemical engineering means that he is quite the yeast expert and can counsel me through whatever yeast difficulties may arise.

Which brings me to last week's baking adventure: challah. I first used the following Baking Illustrated recipe for challah over a year ago and found it to be excellent. Most grocery store challah is light and fluffy and rather bland, so I never knew how rich and flavorful challah is actually supposed to be until I tried this recipe last year. Last weekend I made challah for the second time, and it turned out as well as I remembered it to be. The bread has a deep, eggy flavor, with just the right density - not too heavy and not fluffy like grocery store challah.

Chris made an excellent dinner of pork vindaloo last Sunday that we paired with the freshly-made challah. As much as I enjoyed the pork vindaloo, I would have been happy with a meal of a few slices of challah topped with Kate's butter. (Yes, I know it may seem odd that we had pork paired with challah, as challah is a Jewish bread, but I'm telling you, it pairs wonderfully with pork. It also makes for one hell of a good ham sandwich.) The challah also stayed fresh stored in a ziplock bag for the 5 days it took us to eat it. This made for an excellent week of challah enjoyment, the highlight of which was a simple late-evening, post-yoga dinner of a salad and PB&J on challah. Once again, the simple pleasures rule the day.

The original recipe calls for instant yeast, but since we only have active dry yeast at home, I modified the recipe to use active dry (I was ridiculously proud of myself for being able to successfully manipulate the yeast part of the recipe after my years of yeast phobia...) Enjoy!

Challah

Adapted From Baking Illustrated

3 cups unbleached, all purpose flour, more for dusting the work surface

3 teaspoons active dry yeast

1/4 cup sugar, divided

1 1/4 teaspoons salt

2 large eggs plus one egg separated (reserve the white for the egg wash)

4 tablespoons (1/2 stick) unsalted butter, melted

1/2 cup plus one tablespoon warm water (about 100 degrees)

In a small bowl, stir together yeast, one tablespoon sugar, and 1/2 cup water. Let sit until yeast mixture starts foaming (about 5-10 minutes).

In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, sugar and salt; set aside.

In the bowl of a standing mixer, mix together the 2 eggs, egg yolk, and melted butter. Mix in the yeast mixture. Add the flour mixture; using the dough hook, knead at low speed until a ball of dough forms, about 5 minutes, adding more flour if necessary.

In a small bowl, whisk the reserved egg white together with the remaining 1 tablespoon water. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and refrigerate the egg wash until ready to use.

Place the dough in a very lightly oiled large bowl, turning the dough over to coat with the oil. Cover with plastic wrap and let rise in a warm place until doubled in size, 1 1/2 to 2 hours. Gently press the dough to deflate it, cover with plastic wrap, and let rise until doubled in size again, 40 - 60 minutes.

Transfer the dough to a lightly floured surface. Divide the dough into 2 pieces, one roughly half the size of the other. Divide the large piece into 3 equal pieces. Roll each piece into 16-inch long rope, about 1 inch in diameter. Line the ropes of dough side by side and braid them together, pinching to seal the ends of the braid. Place the braid on a lightly greased baking sheet. Divide the smaller piece of dough into 3 equal pieces. Roll each piece into a 16-inch long rope, about 1/2 inch in diameter. Braid together, pinching on the ends to seal. Brush some of the egg wash on top of the large braid and place the small braid on the larger braid. Loosely drape the loaf with plastic wrap and let rise in a warm place for about 45 minutes, or until the loaf becomes puffy and increases in size by a third.

Adjust oven rack to the lower-middle position and heat the oven to 375 degrees. Brush the loaf with the remaining egg wash. Bake the loaf for 30-40 minutes or until it is golden brown and an instant read thermometer inserted into the side of the loaf reads 190 degrees. Place the baking sheet on a wire rack. Let cool completely before slicing (this is hard to do - I found it's fine when sliced when slightly warm).