We are making loads and loads of homemade raw goat milk cheese (chevre) around here. Because of this I have to find new and exciting ways to USE the goat cheese, hence today’s recipe.

The bread comes out delightfully herby, cheesy, and moist. Super delicious. This bread keeps well in the refrigerator and goes fantastically well with red meat as a side.

This bread is a definite keeper for me!

I made a video on how to make chevre cheese, see below. Its certainly not the best video out there but it gets the job done! Sorry that my voice over is not more fetching!

Raw kefir chevre (goat cheese) bread
Adapted from Joy of Cooking Cheese bread recipe (pg 749, 1997)

Ingredients:

• 5 1/2 cups bread flour
• 3 packages of active dry yeast (make sure its absolutely fresh)
• 2 tablespoons sugar
• 1 tablespoon salt
• 1 1/4 cups home cultured raw goat milk kefir, medium thickness
• 2 tablespoons melted butter
• 1 1/2 cups raw homemade goat cheese (chevre)
• handful of fresh oregano, minced
• handful of fresh dill, minced

Directions:

Mix together: flour, yeast, sugar, and salt. Add kefir and melted butter. This part could be difficult if you are hand mixing (much easier if you are using a stand mixer). As you mix, its possible that this amount of kefir may not be enough. This depends on the dryness of your flour! You will need to keep adding kefir until the dough comes together just right (not too dry and NOT too wet). The knead the dough (hand/mixer) for a good 10 minutes or until it is delightfully elastic.

Put dough into oiled bowl (make sure top of dough is oily too), cover with plastic, and let rise 90 minutes.

In the mean time, prepare your cheese filling.

Mix your goat cheese with your herbs.

Once the dough has risen, punch it down and split it in half.

Roll out half the dough into a rectangle, not too thin.

Take half of the cheese mixture and spread it out onto the dough rectangle.

Roll it up.

Pinch it closed.

You now need to go to the next rise. Put the dough in a bread pan, seam side DOWN.

Oil and cover with plastic, rise for 90 minutes.

Put into a 350 F oven for 40-45 minutes until the bottom sounds hollow when tapped.

Enjoy!

Be sure to keep this bread in the refrigerator (due to the cheese).

Its amazing simply toasted (under a broiler, not in a toaster), try it!

Today I am sharing the results of an experiment I recently did while I had access to a trial Sous Vide Supreme unit.

To the point, I wanted to see what happened when I used this hot water bath for making bread, something that would not take advantage of quite a few aspects of oven baking.

Some of those are:

• dry heat of the oven evaporating moisture from the surface of the dough which leads to gradual drying of dough surface but also, initially, cooling of the dough surface by evaporative cooling
• the slow raising of temperature as is requested in my original recipe (put dough in cold oven then turn onto 400, allowing for final proof/loft in the oven which gives excellent bread)
• the creation of a temperature differential between the surface of the bread (crust zone) and the interior
• the creation of a brown crust due to the Maillard Reaction (where high temperatures cause intermolecular bonding between proteins and sugars and gives rise to the browning), absent in sous vide cooking

This is not the first time that I have played with this machine, I wrote previously about Sous Vide here – St. Patricks day brisket – sous vide style. That brisket was simply amazing! Sous vide cooking is excellent for applications where long slow cooking or really finicky temperature regulation is needed (fish, rare meat preps, etc).

Just as a reminder, sous vide means “under vacuum” and when people refer to this method they usually mean the use of vacuum and hot water bath cooking.

To do this experiment, I used a recipe that I have used many many times before from the Joy of Cooking and specifically the Whole Wheat bread Plus recipe found on page 559 of the 1997 edition.

JoC Whole Wheat Bread Plus

Ingredients:

• 2 1/4 teaspoons dry yeast
• 1 tablespoon sugar
• 1/2 cup warm water
• 1 egg, beaten
• 1/4 cup melted butter
• 2 1/2 cups warm water
• 1 1/2 teaspoons sea salt
• 1/2 cup sugar (optional)
• 4 cups unbleached white flour
• 4 cups whole wheat flour

Directions:
Set the sous vide bath temperature to 190 F (if you set it a bit higher, let it get there, and then set temperature to final desired temperature you may have better results). This is the temperature mentioned by bakers as the target finished internal temperature.

Add yeast and sugar to 1/2 cup warm water, allow to rise 10 minutes. If it doesnt get foamy and smell yeasty, do not go forward with this recipe until you get fresh yeast.

After 10 minutes, add everything but the flour and beat until incorporated.

Add 4 cups unbleached white flour and incorporate.

Add 4 cups whole wheat flour and incorporate. At this point you will be kneading the flour into the dough. Knead for 10 minutes until smooth.

Rise in a warm place for 90 minutes (doubled) just once.

Bunch down dough and then form smallish baguette shaped loaves and then proceed with experimental part of this recipe, below.

Put dough into sous vide bag.

Seal bag and pull a vacuum.

Put into sous vide machine and leave for about 1 1/2 hours. You will have to prod your bread at times, perhaps even open the bag and check the internal temp or moistness of the bread to get a feel for what is going on.

Remove bread and this is what you get.

I sliced them in half and then toasted them to make a sort of garlic bread concept.

The bread came out like bread which was the main hack. The exterior doesnt have a nice crust because of the method but it didnt come out slimy, just sort of springy. Might be a great way to make bao?

The crumb was dense and not as flavorful as this recipe can yield.

So, I made bread in the sous vide but I wont again because the baking in the oven yields a superior result that cant even be recaptured via toasting.

Sometimes a recipe inspires me to jump up, spend way more energy than I have, to make it immediately. This recipe today was that for me.

I watched Mark Bittman’s video on making these non-kosher matzoh which seemed quite easy to make and they look fantastic.

There are several things which make a matzoh kosher (and then another layer of rules to make it kosher for Passover). These include the composition of the flour used, the type of liquid used, the careful handling of the dough so that it doesnt begin to ferment, the time from starting to make the dough to the time of baking (18 minutes max), and supervision by a rabbi.

I think this recipe is likely non-kosher in every way except the use of relatively pure flour. Bittman says that this recipe is essentially the same as Sardinian “carta musica” or “pane carasau” although this recipe for matzoh is not baked twice.

If you live in the USA and are not Jewish you may not know much about matzoh other than that you have likely seen matzoh in the stores around this time of year – this is because Passover is coming!

In very short – Passover is the Jewish holiday that commemorates the escape of the Jews from slavery to the Pharaoh in Egypt. A ritual meal is eaten on the first night of Passover, called a seder. For an extensive description of this meal visit this wikipedia link – Passover Seder.

Remember that Jesus was Jewish so it makes sense that what is celebrated in the communion rite of the Christian Mass as the Last Supper was actually a passover seder, which it was. In art that depicts the last supper you often see hunks of bread but the reality is that the bread at the last supper would have been unleavened bread like matzoh.

In some ways, it was a masterful stroke by the writers of Christian theology to add meaning to the already heavily ritualistic and extremely important Jewish holiday by adding the ritual of Jesus giving bread as his body and wine as his blood – the mystery of the transubstantiation.

Think about the communion wafer or eucharist – its a flat unleavened wafer barely recognizable as bread and much more like a matzoh.

A handmade and expensive especially kosher matzoh called a shmura matzoh

The machine made matzoh that you see in stores.

Homemade non-kosher matzoh (This is Mark Bittman’s recipe)

Ingredients:

• 2 cups flour
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/3 cup olive oil
• 1/2 cup water
• Sea salt, optional

Directions:

Heat the oven to 500 degrees. Put flour, salt and olive oil in a food processor. Once the machine is on, add water. Continue to run the machine until the dough forms a firm ball, rides around on the blade and is not at all sticky. (If you prefer, whisk together the water and oil and add this to the machine all at once.) [This is the way Bittman does it in the video. I put the water and oil in a canning jar, put on the lid and shook the heck out of it, well emulsified that way]

Cut the dough into 12 small balls — this is easiest if you cut the ball in half, then half again, then into thirds — and flatten each into a 3- to 4-inch patty. On a well-floured surface, use a rolling pin to roll each patty into a 6- to 8-inch circle. The shapes can be irregular, but the dough should be so thin you can almost see through it.

Put the dough on ungreased cookie sheets, sprinkle with sea salt if you like, and bake for about 2 to 3 minutes, keeping a very close eye on the breads — they can burn very quickly. Once they begin to puff up and brown, flip and cook for another minute or so on the second side. Repeat with all the dough and let cool completely.

Yields 12 servings.

I recently got a starter batch of kefir grains from Wardeh at Gnowfglins. She too has her own herd of dairy goats and also works hard to give her loved ones whole and wholesome foods.

Her kefir grains have been amazing, quite vigorous, and the kefir delicious!

What is kefir?

Kefir grains are a combination of bacteria and yeasts in a matrix of proteins, lipids, and sugars. This symbiotic matrix forms “grains” that resemble cauliflower. Many different bacteria and yeasts are found in the kefir grains, which are a complex and highly variable community of micro-organisms termed probiotics.

How to pronounce “kefir”:

It is NOT “Keeee-fer”

its “Kuh-fear”

I have made my own goat buttermilk in the past and have been struck how much like buttermilk kefir can be (except for the yeast smell). For this reason, I immediately thought of using kefir in baking and breads. I have yet to make a bread with kefir but I do plan on it.

Today I am sharing a recipe for whole wheat kefir crumpets that I made up and found to turn out to be quite excellent.

I recommend buying crumpet rings if you want to make the proper size. I didnt have rings and I could not find biscuit or cookie cutters anywhere (mysteries abound here).

Instead, I used, the horrors, canning jar rings because I just could NOT wait until the budget allowed to order crumpet rings.

Whether you use the proper crumpet rings or any other sort, be sure they are well greased and well heated in your pan before using. This helps the crumpet batter to not stick to the rings, they will pop right out.

If you do not have real kefir (alive, made at home, not the sterile stuff in the store), use real cultured buttermilk in its place.

Whole Wheat Kefir Crumpets

Ingredients:

• 1 1/2 c whole wheat flour
• 1/2 c unbleached bread flour
• 1 cup warm water + 1/4 cup warm water if needed to adjust
• 1 cup medium thick kefir (or buttermilk)
• 2 pks or 4 1/2 tsps yeast
• 1/2 tsp baking soda
• 1 tsp salt

Directions:
To 3/4 cup whole wheat flour add 1 cup warm water and yeast, mix and proof until fluffy, about 20 minutes or so, do not let it over-proof (would smell alcoholic).

Add 1 cup medium thickness kefir (or buttermilk), remaining flour, baking soda, salt, to the foamy yeast/flour base and then mix well. 

Add 1/4 c water as needed to make medium thin batter.

Spray rings with non-stick spray or oil them. 

Heat rings in medium hot pan with some oil.

Add batter to rings until about 1/3 full.

Cook until dry bubbles on top, watching for any burning.

Flip, remove rings, cook until light brown or golden.

Allow to cool.

Slice in half and toast interior.

Slather with butter and load up with delicious jam or preserves or many be clotted cream!

Enjoy!

The slideshow above will take you through the process of making homemade Buttermilk Saltines.

You might ask WHY one would want to make saltines when they are so cheap at the store. I guess I am the sort that can not leave well enough alone. I also can’t help being a scientist, even though I am not at the bench. I tend to want to dig into a food and deconstruct it, make it myself, know it from the beginning.

I also ran out of them and didn’t have a way to get to the store!

Making proper old fashioned saltines is not hard, per se, but it requires one to use a bit of planning.

Why? Well, this is because it takes TWO DAYS to make! Its nothing near as tedious as making puff pastry. No, its just that yeast needs time to do it’s magic.

I searched the web for a recipe and decided on the following recipe, which I sourced at this link.

These came out very flavorful and the major advantage to making your own saltines is that you can use your favorite salt (Celtic, black Hawaiian, fluorescent Martian, iridescent jade salt from Atlantis, your choice).

It also means you can put other things on like black pepper, white pepper, cayenne, rosemary, sage, just about anything.

If you try this, let me know!

Cayenne dusted Buttermilk Saltines

Traditional Buttermilk Saltines

Ingredients:

• 1 1/2 teaspoons Dry active yeast (1 package contains 2-1/4 teaspoons)
• 1 1/2 C warm water
• 4 1/2 C all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 tablespoon water for dissolving the baking soda
• 2 tablespoons + 2 teaspoons buttermilk
• 2 teaspoons salt
• 1/4 C butter (softened)

Directions:

In a small bowl, combine the yeast with the sugar and warm water. Set aside until the yeast is fully dissolved, 5 to 10 minutes.

Measure 3-1/2 cups of the flour into a large bowl. Stir in the yeast mixture and mix well.

Place plastic wrap over the bowl and let the dough rest in a warm place for 20 to 30 hours.

The plastic wrap keeps the dough from drying out during this long period.

In a small bowl, dissolve the baking soda in the tablespoon water. Place the baking soda mixture, buttermilk, salt, and shortening in the bowl with the dough and mix well.

Mix in as much of the remaining 1/2 to 1 cup flour as necessary to form a stiff, nonsticky dough.

Knead for a minute or two and then let the dough rest, covered with the plastic wrap, for 15 minutes.

On a lightly floured surface, knead the dough for another few minutes, until it is smooth and springy to the touch.

Place it in a large, clean, lightly oiled bowl and let it rest for another 3 or 4 hours, covered with plastic wrap.

At last you are ready to roll.

Preheat the oven to 450~ F.

Punch the dough down and knead a few strokes. Divide the dough into 3 equal portions for rolling.

Rolling may be difficult at first due to the elasticity of the dough. Give yourself a head start on the rolling by flattening the dough with your hands.

Place your rolling pin in the center of the dough and begin. Soon the dough will relax and begin to roll easily.

On a floured surface or pastry cloth, roll out to a rectangle approximately 1/4 inch thick and position so the long edge runs horizontally in front of you.

Fold the left third of the dough over the center third. Likewise, fold the right third over the center.

The dough is now in 3 layers with the seam running vertically.

Give the dough a quarter turn so the seam now runs horizontally.

Roll out again to a rectangle about 1/4 inch thick.

Fold and turn the dough again as in the first step.

You are now ready for the final rolling.

Roll the dough out thinner this time, about 1/16 to 1/8 inch thick. If desired, sprinkle the top lightly and evenly with salt and roll over it lightly with the rolling pin.

With a sharp knife (we used a pizza cutter!), cut into 2-inch squares and place each one on an ungreased baking sheet.

Prick each square 2 or 3 times with the tines of a fork.

Bake for 8 minutes.

Turn and bake an additional 1 to 3 minutes, or until lightly browned.

Cool on a rack.

Yield: 95-100.

I wasn’t necessarily raised on transcendent biscuits, we had patacones and arepas instead. My mom, who is from Illinois and from a family of Illinois corn, soybean, and pig farmers who came from the hills of Kentucky ages ago (and I don’t know where before that), would talk about the delicious food her grandma cooked in her diner. Biscuits were obviously part of that but she never made them on any consistent basis because they are “unnecessary carbohydrates”. In our house, in the 70s, if a carbohydrate was to be eaten it had better be whole wheat or rice. This is all fine by me, life is long and there is plenty of time to make biscuits.

I fell in love with biscuits when we lived in the south (Texas, Louisiana, Georgia and Virginia, if you want to call NoVA the south). I mostly lusted for biscuits from two particular places – Popeye’s in New Orleans and Hardee’s in Peachtree City, Georgia. The commonality between these biscuits was their moistness.

I like biscuits so much that I do choke down the drier ones but I am always ruminating on those moist ones I remember from New Orleans and Georgia. I know that those two fast food joints are not the paragons of southern cooking but they got the whole biscuit thing right.

Unfortunately, my husband and kids have not liked my biscuits to date. I have tried the lazy way – Bisquick. I like them but the family won’t touch them. I have made them from scratch but the same story, especially if they are drop biscuits.

Lisa over at Homesick Texan had a very lovely post on beaten biscuits, something I have never eaten or made. Check out her post for more information, background, texture, and food porn.

Well, it seems that I have finally broken the dry biscuit barrier with my latest attempt. I combined several variations for biscuits as found on pages 789 and 790 of the 1997 version of the Joy of Cooking to excellent effect.

I served these whole wheat buttermilk biscuits to the more “discerning” 10 year old with little expectation but with threats of bodily harm if some of the biscuit wasn’t even at least tried.

Silence.

I looked over at the child to see her actually munching away on the biscuit. Then, this really blew me away, she asked for another one. I asked her, OK, I interrogated her, as to what was different with these biscuits and she says that they have a delicious flavor, something she has never said about previous biscuits. I tried them and they are moist, flavorful, and really take a beating in the storage department as they do not dry out even the next day. Most biscuits should not have to last more than 15 minutes but if you have to store a few leftovers, these work well.

If you try these, I hope you have the same experience.

Whole Wheat Buttermilk Biscuits

(as per Joy of Cooking and a bit of my own adaptation re: using whole wheat pastry flour)

Ingredients:

• 1 1/2 C King Arthur Unbleached Flour
• 1/2 C Bob’s Red Mill Organic Whole Wheat Pastry Flour
• 2 teaspoons double acting baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 6 tablespoons cold butter, small cubes
• 3/4 C cultured buttermilk

Directions:

Preheat oven to 450F.

Whisk together the flours, the baking powder and baking soda. Add the cold butter and then crumble it together with the flour until your get very small fragments of flour coated butter.

Please, if you can, study the advice given in the Joy of Cooking as to how best this is done. I use my hands because I like a little excitement in my life, living on the edge (right!). If you have hot hands, don,t do this because you will melt your butter and you will have a mess on your hands.

Add the 3/4 C buttermilk and mix ONLY until the dough has come together (over mixing is a massive no-no, just say no). Pick up the dough and press it against the edges of the bowl to pick up all the bits.

I make square biscuits because 1) I hate waste, 2) I am not dogmatic about the shape of my biscuit, 3) the reformed biscuits made from the scraps of round biscuits are always tough and not worth the time.

Put the dough out onto a floured board, pat to 1/2 inch (or your preferred size), and then slice into squares.

On an ungreased parchment lined baking sheet, place the squares so that they just barely touch one another.

If you wish, brush tops with butter or a bit of milk wash.

Bake 10-15 minutes until light brown. Your oven may take longer or less time. Since these are whole wheat they are already sort of brown so you need to keep watching them so that they get the color you like. Don’t bake too long, they will dry out.

Books of Interest:

• The All New, All Purpose Joy of Cooking, 1998

Products of Interest:

• Bob’s Red Mill Flour, Pastry, Whole Wheat, Organic, 5#
• King Arthur Unbleached Flour, 5 lbs

Related Posts:

• How-2 guide on how to make Platanos (fried plantains or tostones)
• Arepa de huevo (Arepa with egg)

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For this month’s designated driver drink, I had to stretch beyond the trite Saint Patrick’s day “stock drinks”. I also didnt want to explore virgin irish coffees, whats the point?!

Today’s nonalcoholic drink is a fusion between Colombia (my childhood influence) and a drink popular in the 1970s here in the US, the Grasshopper. I put this together because its green but also filled with tropical goodness.

Guanabana (Guanabanus muricatus) is the fruit base. It is called “soursop” by the British (not at all sure why, sour doesnt really describe the unique flavor of this fruit). It is related to the Paw-Paw and Cherimoya. If you live anywhere near an urban center, you may find latino food stores and in those stores, in the freezer section, you will likely find the guanabana pulp frozen into packages. Of course, the fresh fruit will never be replicated by frozen or concentrate, but these frozen pulps are a great stand in.

Regarding the taste. In the case of this fruit, texture is coupled to the flavor. I can not articulate it completely, but there is a textural heaviness or “grit” that coats the mouth while the flavor has a slight tingle/prickly ever-so-slightly sour bite that travels across the roof of the mouth and a bit on the back of the tongue.

If you have had guanabana and like to describe it differently, please comment because I would love to see how others experience this fruit.

I remember my parents making grasshoppers and pink panthers at home. My mom says it was a 70s thing. It marked my childhood, just like Elvis, skateboards, and Sha Na Na did.

The typical grasshopper contains Green Crème De Menthe, light cream, and Crème De Cacao. Yikes, talk about heavy. My parents would make non-alcoholic versions of it with ice cream.

This grasshopper that I have put together for you today is a more globalized version. It contains a lot more vitamin C and a lot less proccessed “Creme“, whatever THAT is.

Gobstopping Grasshoppers

Ingredients:

• 1 frozen package of Guanabana pulp
• 1 C cold skim milk (I used skim because thats what we had on hand, you use what you like)
• 1/2 C white granulated sugar
• 1 teaspoon freshly minced ginger
• 1 tablespoon Key Lime Juice
• pinch of salt
• 2 large tablespoon dollops non-dairy whipped cream (Cool Whip)
• 1 tablespoon chopped fresh mint (In this case, my fresh mint was “displaced” by a family member, I had to use a scant drop of mint extract)

Directions:

Blend all these ingredients into a frothy cold shake and serve in frozen mugs or goblets.

Enjoy!

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As you know from reading some of my previous posts (here), I live in a super tiny village called Wales in central Massachusetts USA. We do not live the fast life here; we enjoy the quiet and solitude of the woods.

One of the things I like about the people who live in this region is that they often find ways to build small businesses that keep them IN the region. I have commuted for YEARS to Boston (4 hours a day) and I now put a premium on working close to or in the home.

Today, I would like to introduce you to one such resident of Wales, Cathie Albrecht (shown at top). She opened Auntie Cathie’s Bakery two years ago, and she is intensely dedicated to giving her customers what they desire. One outcome of this philosophy is that she is finding ways to make just about everything she offers in her bakery all natural sugar-free, wheat-free, and gluten-free. (Note: She ships to anywhere in the continental US.)

This means that Auntie Cathies makes gluten-free:

• breads
• cakes
• cookies
• Moon pies
• pastries
• pies
• pizza dough
• wedding cakes
• and just about anything else you could imagine.

On a recent day, Cathie allowed me to take some photos of her bakery, herself, her employees, and her delicious food.

If you would like to visit our quaint New England town of Wales and this bakery specifically, click here for a map and directions. If you would like to mail-order bakery items or some of their handmade all natural soaps and other toiletries, give the bakery a call at 413-245-6235.

Auntie Cathie’s Bakery

17 Main Street (Route 19)
Wales, Massachusetts 01081-9777
cathie@auntiecathies.com

Auntie Cathie’s Web Site

Copyright © 2007 Nika Boyce All Rights Reserved

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Every recipe I have tried at home has given me pretty nasty dry crumbly bread that, although it sops up the juices from the New England boiled dinner ok, cloys up the mouth and ends up almost gagging me. Not a happy experience, I tell you.

Recently, my husband did the grocery shopping (always an experience in finding something novel in the grocery bag when he gets home) and he bought a corned beef brisket. With the weather finally getting cold around here, that was a perfect thing for supper.

Well, I went to make the same old Irish soda bread and saw that I had all I needed in the fridge, including the sour cream. A bit later, when I pulled the sour cream out, I realised it wasnt that at all but cottage cheese! I went with serendipity and made the most amazing soda bread yet!

So thats right, this recipe uses cottage cheese (large curd) instead of sour cream. Its so moist, doesnt fall to pieces, soaks up all the juices you would want and stays moist a good few days. Its a major plus that it doesnt cloy up and you dont have to extract it from the roof of your mouth like peanut butter (something that always happened with the other soda breads I have had.)

Try this recipe (below), let me know what you think!

Ingredients:
4 1/2 C All purpose flour
1/2 C sugar
1 tsp salt
1 tsp baking soda
2 tsp baking powder
2 eggs
1 1/4 C cultured buttermilk
1 C large curd cottage cheese

Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 350 F
2. Spray a 9 inch non-stick springform pan with flour-Pam.
3. In a large bowl, combine and sift all the dry ingredients (flour, sugar, salt, baking soda, baking powder).
4. In another bowl, beat the eggs with the buttermilk and then mix in the cottage cheese.
5. Slowly add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and mix with a spoon until the dough comes together.
6. In the large bowl, knead the dough enough to incorporate all the stray flour in the bowl (will be sticky).
7. Remove to the springform pan and place in the preheated oven.
Watch the color and allow to bake until it reaches the color you like (deep redish brown in my case) and then cover with foil for the remainder of the cooking time (65-70 mins total)
8. Remove from the oven and pop open the springform pan. Slide the bread onto a wire rack to cool. Can serve 8 large slices, 16 medium. Serve with butter!
9. Store in a plastic zip-lock bag.

Recently I have been hankering to make bread. I usually make White Bread plus from The Joy of Cooking but this hankering was specific to a bread I had not made before – Challah.

Part of this comes from knowing a bit about the rich Jewish family traditions that surround this bread. Sure, its made well enough in bakeries around the world. It is also much more appreciated if it is made within the home, as part of the love that goes into the Friday evening meal. There is considerable religious context that surrounds the bread but it would be disingenuous for me to speak to that as I am not an observant Jew!

What I resonate most with is the conjuring of love, home, and hearth that comes from the making of this bread. Instead of buying a cooked loaf in a store somewhere made by strangers intent on profit, the bread baking in your own oven made by your own hands infuses it’s beautiful aroma throughout the home, embracing everyone within with its promise of fellowship and simple joy of fresh homemade bread.

When I set out to make this bread I envisioned the happiness of sharing it with my family. What actually happened was that my daughters and I had a glorious engrossing afternoon of making dough, kneading it, braiding it, allowing it to rise, and then enjoying it’s smells as it baked. What a wonderful magical afternoon! We will be eating challah for at least a week.

We used Joan Nathan’s recipe for Challah bread. It can be found in her cookbook “The Jewish Holiday Baker”. It is easy and quite forgiving! I used 5 eggs instead of the 4 called for by accident because this was the first time through this recipe (the 5th should be used as an egg wash). Do be watchful of the color of your bread as it bakes, mine was too dark before the recommended baking time, vagaries of the oven!

Now in Joan Nathan’s voice with our photos and occasional notes (Note that my 9 year old daughter did all of the steps with her own two hands. The 2.5 year old also made her own little loaf, with a bit of help from her older sister.):

Challah Bread

This recipe calls for two kinds of flour. Bread flour includes more gluten, helpful in the braiding. However, if you can find only all-purpose flour, use that. It also calls for 1/2 – 3/4 cup of sugar, because I like my challah less sweet than many challah eaters, even in my family! If you are going to use just one loaf, perform another mitzvah — give away the second. If you are making a month of challahs, as I sometimes do, double the recipe and freeze several just after braiding them. Take them out of the freezer 5 hours before glazing and baking.

Ingredients:

1 scant tablespoon (1 package) active dry yeast
1 3/4 cups lukewarm water
1/2 to 3/4 cup sugar
1/2 cup vegetable oil
5 large eggs
5 cups bread flour
3 1/2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour, approximately
1 tablespoon salt
Poppy or sesame seeds for sprinkling

Directions:

Note: Technically, the separation of challah with a blessing, according to the Talmud, refers only to dough using flour that weighs at least 3 pounds 11 ounces. If the flour weighs less than 2 pounds 11 ounces, you do not have to separate the challah at all, and if it weighs more than 2 pounds 11 ounces and less than 3 pounds 11 ounces, you can separate it without a blessing. The challah is usually blessed after the flour, yeast, water, and other ingredients are mixed.

The dough:

1. In a large bowl, dissolve the yeast in the warm water. Add the sugar and the oil and mix well with a whisk or a wooden spoon. Beat in 4 of the eggs, 1 at a time; then gradually stir in the bread flour, 2 cups of the all-purpose flour, and the salt. When you have a dough that holds together, it is ready for kneading.

2. To knead by hand, place the dough on a lightly floured surface. Knead well, using the heels of your hands to press the dough away and your fingers to bring it back. Continue, turning the dough, for about 10 minutes, or until the dough is smooth and elastic, adding the remaining 1 1/2 cups of all-purpose flour or as needed.

To knead by machine in an electric mixer fitted with the dough hook, knead for 5 minutes on medium speed, or until smooth. You can also process half the dough at a time in a food processor fitted with the steel blade; process for about 1 minute.

3. After kneading, place all the dough in a large oiled bowl, cover with plastic wrap, and let it rest in a warm place for 1 hour, until almost doubled in size. You can also put the dough in an oven that has been warmed to 150 degrees for a few minutes and then turned off.

4. When the dough is almost doubled in size, remove it from the bowl and punch it down — the rougher you are, the more the dough likes it. Return it to the bowl, cover it again and let it rise in a warm place for 30 minutes more. Or, if you have to go out, let the dough rise slowly in the refrigerator several hours or overnight and bring it to room temperature when ready to continue.

Braiding and baking the challah:

5. To make a 6-braided challah, take half the dough and form into 6 balls. Roll each ball with your hands into a strand about 14 inches long and 1 1/2 inches wide. Pinch the strands together at one end and then gently spread them into 2 groups of 3.
Next, take the outside right strand over 2 to the middle empty space. Then, take the second strand from the left to the far right. Regroup to 3 on each side. Take the outside left strand over 2 to the middle and the second strand from the right over to the far left.

Continue this method until all the strands are braided. The key is to always have 3 strands on each side so that you can keep your braid balanced. Make a second loaf the same way. Place the braided loaves in greased 10- by 4-inch loaf pans or on a greased cookie sheet with at least 2 inches in between.

To make loaves symbolizing the 12 shewbread, the consecrated loaves placed on the altar in the Temple of Jerusalem, shape one half of the dough into 12 tight balls and press them together in the bottom of a greased 10- by 4- inch loaf pan. Repeat with the second half of the dough in another pan.

We chose the simpler method of just three stranded loaves:

6. Let the challah loaves rise another hour, uncovered. Fifteen minutes before putting the loaves in the oven, beat the remaining egg and brush it gently over them. Five minutes later, lightly brush them again. Then sprinkle with poppy or sesame seeds and let dry a few minutes.

7. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Bake the loaves on the middle rack of the oven for 10 minutes. Then reduce the temperature to 375 degrees and bake for 30 minutes more. Turn off the oven and leave the loaves in 5 minutes longer to get a dark-golden crust. Remove and cool on a rack.

Yield: 2 loaves

I say make this bread with your family as soon as you can get it together.

Books of Note:

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