Days Getting Longer

With the winter solstice passing earlier this week, days are now getting longer. That's a relief because I'm tired of short days. Yeah, I live at just 37.4° N latitude so I don't have the worst of it, but it's still a drag. It's dark when my morning alarm wakes me up and it's dark before my workday ends.

Curiously, while the winter solstice is the shortest day and thus days are getting longer after it, the problem of "My morning alarm rings before sunrise" won't see progress for another 2 weeks or so. Despite the days getting longer, sunrise is still getting later! That's because, due to the tilt of the earth's axis and some other factors, the earliest sunset and latest sunrise do not both occur on the solstice (except near the north pole). At mid-northern latitudes, the earliest sunset happens 1-2 weeks ahead of time and the latest sunrise happens in early January, as science writer Deborah Byrd explains in an article on EarthSky.org.

Challah Time, take 2

A few weeks ago Hawk and I baked challah, a Jewish style of bread, at home. As I noted in that entry, the result looked good but tasted meh. It had a crumbly, un-bread-like texture. What's that old saying? "If at first you don't succeed, try, try again!" You can bet we tried again.

Ding, ding, round two!

This time around we did a few things differently. I picked a recipe from a Betty Crocker cookbook instead of Hawk's recipe from her mom. Hawk sneered at the notion that a mainstream cookbook recipe could make a good Jewish challah, but as I compared the two recipes (and several others) I noted that they were similar. The all have the same basic ingredients, unsurprisingly, in close to the same proportions. The main difference was this recipe wasn't huge!



Hawk's mom cooks like she learned to cook to feed a squad of US Army soldiers (funny but true story!) and never scaled down her recipes. Her bread recipe makes three large loaves. This time around I'd make just one.

Making just one loaf was a good choice not just because, well, we can't eat 3 loaves, but also because a single-loaf ball of dough is easier to knead. My mainstream cookbook offered the helpful advice that when a bread turns out with a crumbly texture, like the previous batch had, the most likely problem is too little kneading.

Despite the dough ball starting out small it grew to be pretty large after rising for 2 hours:



The dough is big and puffy after rising. Most of the apparent volume is air. It's released by chemical action of the yeast and is trapped by the protein chains in the flour— chains that are created through kneading. The amount of air trapped this time indicated to me that we'd formed better protein chains than before. Yay, science!

The next step is "punching down" the dough, as most recipes call it. This brings it back to something closer to its original size. It'll rise more later.



After punching down the dough I divided it into thirds, rolled each third out into cords, and braided them together for the familiar shape of challah.

A bit of technique I refined this time was to brush the egg baste thoroughly on the raw bread, making sure to cover down the sides as well as in all the nooks between the braids. This gives the bread a nice, golden brown color when baked.



So, how did take 2 turn out? Well, the crust on this loaf has a pleasing color. It was just a tad too tough, though. I may try baking it a few minutes less time next time. Or I may cover the bread with a loose foil wrap during the last 10 minutes of baking; that's a suggestion the Betty Crocker cookbook makes for keeping crust softer.

What about the texture, the main issue with batch #1?



The texture is much improved. This challah has more of the stretchy, "pull apart" texture one expects from yeast bread. It's not yet great, though. I would rate it merely okay. I believe kneading the dough better this time is part of what improved it over take 1. (I believe there were other factors, too.) Next time I will knead it even more.

Finally there's the matter of flavor. It was bit bland. Hawk thinks it needs a lot more sweetness. A few squirts of honey, perhaps? We'll try that next time.