Sourdough Challah

For years, I've heard people talking about making Challah. My mother made Challah when I was a kid. It's a rich, eggy Jewish bread, usually braided, and usually beautiful. People rave about it, and because it's rich, it lasts well. It's lovely, but I'd never made a loaf. So I decided, "it's time!"

Some people might wonder, "Why a sourdough Challah?" Simple - it's an old bread, so I feel it was originally made with natural leavens. Or sourdough. And I am attached to that tradition.

Finding a recipe wasn't easy, and I'm not done with the search. I'm not Jewish, but I like to honor the traditions in any traditional bread I bake. Many of the recipes I found include milk, and I rejected those recipes as being unauthentic. (See note below if you want more information on this topic.)

In the end, the recipe I started with was from George Greenstein's "Secrets of a Jewish Baker," and converted to sourdough. I feel the recipe is good, but a bit too dry. When I braided the dough, it tore and separated. It should be a firm dough so the strands won't fuse, but they shouldn't be that dry. Maybe this was because George and I used different flours. Maybe it was a difference in altitude between the coast of New York City and the mountains of Colorado.

Whatever the cause, several trials have shown the dough hydration is critical. If the dough is a bit too wet, it will slump together when braided. If the dough is a little too dry, the dough will shred and be hard to braid. The key is to add the last flour to the dough slowly, creating a firm dough, one where the dough will seal a seam only with some effort. Still, expect to make this recipe a few times before you get it consistently right.

This recipe is for two 1 1/2 pound loaves.

Ingredients:

Volumetric Measure (Cups)	Ingredient	Grams	Baker's Percentage (4)
3/4 of a beaten	Eggs (1)	37 Grams	4.22%
1 1/3 Cups	Water (1)	320 Grams	37%
3/8 Cup	Light Olive Oil	81 Grams	9.3%
2/3 Cup	Active Sourdough Starter (2)	170 Grams	20%
6 2/3 Cups	Bread Flour	870 Grams	100%
3/8 Cup	White Sugar	85 Grams	9.7%
2 1/2 tsp	Salt	15.5	1.77%

Plus - another egg for egg wash, poppy or sesame seeds

1. Eggs can be problematical.  You may beat the egg and measure 3/4 of an egg, or weigh 37 grams.  Both of these are problematical.  Eggs are largely water, so you can just do what I do.  I round up the number of eggs (never using less than one), and then adjust the water accordingly.  In this recipe, break 1 egg into a measuring cup and add enough water to get 1 7/12 cup (a more practical amount might be 1 5/8 cups, which is another reason I hate volumetric measurement - scaling it is a royal pain).  If you are weighing ingredients, put a measuring bowl on your scales, tare the scales, break an egg into the bowl and then add water until the total is 357 grams.
2. If you are measuring with cups, sourdough starter can be blown up by a varying amount of carbon dioxide, so whisk the starter down before measuring the cups for better consistency.

Method:
If you are measuring by weight, all your ingredients should be in your mixing bowl.  Stir them, and then knead for 5 minutes, let the dough rest for 5 minutes, and then knead another 5 minutes.  Check the dough to see if it passes the windowpane test.  If it doesn't pass the window pane test, knead for another 5 minutes.  These instructions work whether you are kneading by hand or using most machines.  Because this dough is so dry, I don't recommend the stretch and fold technique for it.

If you are measuring with cups, mix the starter, water, egg, egg yolks, sugar, oil, 1/2 the flour, and the salt. Stir. Add more flour, a bit at a time, until the dough is too thick to stir.

Pour out the dough onto a lightly floured surface. Knead the dough, adding more flour sparingly, until the dough is smooth, satiny, has lost most of its stickiness, and is fairly firm. You will probably use all the flour called for above.

No matter how you developed your dough, once it is developed, cover it and allow to rise until tripled in volume.

Punch down the dough, knead briefly, cut into eight pieces of the same weight. Divide one piece into three pieces of the same weight.  Repeat this with another large piece.  Form all the balls into strands of about 12 to 14 inches in length, tapered so the center of each piece is thicker than the ends. You should now have six thick and six thin strands. Braid the three thick strands into a loaf and set aside.

Braid the three smaller strands into a smaller loaf. Lightly indent the top center of the larger loaf down its length. Wet it slightly with water. Put the smaller loaf on top of the indention.  Repeat with the remaining strands.

Beat another egg with a few tablespoons of water. Brush this egg wash all over the nested loaves and let them rise until doubled.

Preheat your oven to 350F. With baking stones or tiles in your oven, this will probably take about 45 minutes to an hour.

When the oven is ready, brush the loaves with the egg wash again. Sprinkle the loaves with poppy or sesame seeds. Slide into the oven, bake about 35 minutes. If there is a white line between the braids, continue baking until it disappears. Press lightly between the braids on the highest part of the bread. It should be firm.

If your loaf is browning too much, cover it with baking parchment or a brown paper bag that has been cut open. Crease the parchment or bag to form a tent.

(*) A note about milk in Challah. I looked at Temple San Jose's web page when I created this page. Sadly, the excellent page is no longer available except at the Interent Wayback machine. You may look here for more information about the Jewish dietary restrictions.

They say, "A kid may not be boiled in its mother's milk. The boiling of a kid in its mother's milk was an ancient Canaanite fertility ritual which compounded the symbols of the baby kid with the mother's milk. This was considered an offensive and idolatrous ritual to the ancient Israelites and is forbidden by the Torah. The Torah emphasizes the importance of avoiding pagan idolatrous customs and it is clear that this ritual was considered especially offensive. The prohibition of boiling a kid in its mother's milk forms the basis for the later expansion of Kashrut laws to exclude the mixing of milk and meat products."

They continue a few paragraphs further down, "Separation of milk and meat products to prevent inadvertent transgression of the prohibition against boiling a kid in its mother's milk. Since one cannot always be sure of the source of the meat and the milk, they developed a system of cooking and eating that required completely separation of cooking and eating utensils, and forbid serving milk and meat products on the same table at the same time."

As a result of these considerations, Jewish breads may not contain milk, unless they are clearly formed in such a fashion that all will understand that they contain milk, lest someone accidentally serve milk-containing bread with meat.

Some people will comment that my kitchen isn't Kosher, and no matter what I do to or with the bread I bake, it won't be Kosher. I know that. However, to the extent that I can, I prefer to honor the traditions surrounding a food when I prepare a traditional dish. Since Jewish breads may not contain milk, I looked for a recipe that did not contain milk as a starting point.

Three more points that people not familiar with Jewish traditions may find interesting. It isn't the bread that is the Challah. It is a small portion that is removed from the loaf and offered to G*d. There are prescribed ways of making this offering.

Originally the Challah was offered to the Cohen (priest) in the times of the Temple. Since the Temple was destroyed, the Challah is burnt as it is considered Holy and an observant Jew may not use it. To keep the bakery from smelling like burned bread, the offering is wrapped tightly in aluminum foil.

The next thing is that that a Jewish person would not write out the name of the Deity. Writing it out would make the paper (assuming the page was printed) sacred, and if someone who didn't know better burned or defiled the paper, they would have sinned. Leading someone into transgressions is frowned upon, so an observant Jew spells out the name of the Deity incompletely, as in "G*d". The semi-reformed computer nerd in me wonders if a Jewish computer nerd would spell it "G?d"? (No disrespect intended. Really. It's an attempt at humor about computer nerds, not about religion or anyone's Deity.)