canyonwalker | Challah Time!

In my previous entry I wrote about baking fresh challah. When done well it's dense, soft, and lightly sweet. Eating good, fresh challah is a delightful experience. That's why in Jewish tradition it's served as part of celebrations: on the sabbath and on many holy days. How did ours turn out? It's time to taste it and see!

Enjoying Fresh Challah [Nov 2020]

In a word, Meh.

Wait, WHAT??!?!

Understand, I'm often my own worst critic. I have high standards for how I'd like things to turn out. When the result I get is less than the one I want, it's important I a) acknowledge the shortcoming and b) identify how to do better the next time.

I really wanted this challah to turn out deliciously. I wanted it to be as enjoyable as the challah my mother-in-law (MIL) bakes and some of the people at her temple bake for sabbath luncheons I've joined them at. It fell short of that mark. Oh, it was still better that some home-made challah I've had elsewhere and even better than some store-bought challah I've had. It just wasn't great.

Specifically? The texture was off. The bread had a crumbly texture, not a stretchy, sort of taffy-like consistency good, fresh bread has when you pull it apart. From reading I've done about yeast breads, a common reason for this is not kneading the dough enough. Kneading is important to create bindings among the gluten proteins in the flour. These bindings give it that stretchy consistency, both in the raw dough and in the baked bread. (Yup, there's science in cooking!)

There are also a few minor technique bits I flagged mentally as we prepared this recipe. I have very little experience baking bread— okay, this was my first time ever— but in reading a dozen recipes for baking yeast breads I noticed certain commonalities that MIL's recipe diverged from. I wonder if MIL, who's a skilled cook, has a few oddities in her recipes that are adjustments for idiosyncrasies... things like the behavior of particular brand of yeast she buys, compensation for an inaccurate thermometer in her oven, etc.

At the same as I'm hard on myself because I always am, I've got to give both of us credit for making a relatively decent batch of challah. This is Hawk's first batch in about 30 years and my first bread ever. That's right, I've never actually baked a yeast bread from scratch before! I've made cakes many times; I've made quick breads like banana loaf. I've bought pre-made pizza dough and baked it. But never this. I'm sure over the next few tries we'll get better... and then maybe we'll make bread that compares to baking from my MIL and the ladies at her temple, all of whom have decades of experience!