Challah

This is the lovely loaf I made.

Here is the recipe from Easy Bread Making For Special Diets.

This, among many recipes in this book, are made for use in a bread machine.

Ingredients for a 1 1/2 lb or 1lb machine:

Water 1 cup

Fruit Sweet, agave or maple syrup 1/4 cup (I used maple syrup)

Oil 1tbsp. (I used canola)

Liquid lecithin (or may use additional oil) 1/2 tbsp

Salt 1tsp

Optional Saffron (a small pinch) or yellow food coloring (several drops) { I omitted}

Bread Flour 3 1/4 cup

Active dry yeast 2 1/4 tsp.

Dough Cycle, when finished, remove the dough from the machine. Divide it into 4 parts and roll each into a 20″ long rope. Lay them side by side on an oiled baking sheet. Braid them by starting with the rope on the right side; bring it over its immediate neighbor, under the next rope, and over the last rope. Repeat the process over and over, starting from the right, until the loaf is all braided. Brush with: 1/4 cup of water and 1 tsp tapioca flour or cornstarch, combined in a sauce pan, brought to boil, reduce the heat, and simmered until the mixture is clear and the consistency of egg white. You can add saffron or yellow food coloring to that if you like. (I didn’t) Allow to rise until double, 30-40 minutes, and bake at 375F for 25 to 30 minutes, or until brown.
The spelt variety just called for 3 3/4 cup of white spelt flour instead of the wheat. I haven’t had a chance to try it again, hopefully Wednesday.

Vegan Challah

So, I just re-bought the book Easy Bread Making for Special Diets, and I decided to try to make the egg-less Challah. I have never actually had Challah, so I am not sure what it is supposed to taste like, but it is Hanukkah, and was feeling like an adventure. I made my first loaf using unbleached, unbromiated, unenriched white bread flour, because I had some I needed to get rid of. It turned out amazing! Huge, and delicious; I couldn’t believe that I made it. It wasn’t that hard. So, because I don’t eat wheat most of the time, I tried the recipe again with white spelt flour. The dough was sticky and gooey. I should have re-kneaded it and added more flour, but I was in a hurry, and quickly braided it and through it in the oven to rise. When I came back to bake it, it was a big mass of dough, with no evidence that I had braided it. I baked it anyway, and it was a large, flat piece of bread. It was good, my roommate loved it, but I was disappointed. After seeing what I could do with wheat flour, I really want to be able to do that with spelt. I would like to do something similar with a gluten free bread, but we’ll see. I am going to try to make the spelt again, this time, I will make sure each rope is nice and distinct. I will report back.

This morning I tried to make the Raisin bread, but with currents, and half whole spelt instead of all white spelt. I put the bread machine on the wrong setting, and tried to start it over again. It started to smoke when it tried to bake the bread, so I took it out and baked it in the oven. It turned out pretty good, a little undercooked in the middle.

One of the cats that lives here bit me pretty bad on the hand, I believe because I wouldn’t let him into my room, but who knows. He punctured the meaty part of the base of my thumb, it is swollen and hurts to move. I don’t know if I will be making bread by hand for a day or so. I hope it is better by Tuesday, for the cooking class. There is little grosser than a cooking instructor who has a swollen, oozy hand.