Adventures in challah baking!
Today I learned how to bake challah! They were having a class at Hillel, so I decided to buy a mixing bowl and check it out. I've never baked bread before, and it turned out to be a lot of fun.
(Challah is the sort of cakey bread Jewish people traditionally eat on the sabbath and holidays, btw, for anyone who doesn't know...)
Here's the dough after all the ingredients were added. The girl teaching us said she usually uses half white flour, half whole wheat, but I used about six cups white and two cups whole wheat, so it doesn't taste like whole wheat bread. (Because that's just not what I think of when I think challah...) We also used some rosemary, which is really delicious...
Now here's the dough after I let it sit for 40 minutes! It grew!
Then we punched it...also known as kneading.
Then came the braiding. I made one regular braided, and one round, because Rosh Hashanah is coming up, and traditionally you eat round challah on Rosh Hashanah.
The little ball of dough sitting there is called the hoffrish, which I learned you traditionally separate from the challahs and bake before discarding, because in ancient times it was for an offering to the temple...which seems like one of those outdated traditions I'm not such a fan of, but I went along with it for the learning experience ^^;
Then I carried them back to the dorms, which was interesting. XD;; I brought all my stuff up to the fourth floor, because my floor doesn't have an oven. And I baked them!
...and they are delicious. ^___^
(Challah is the sort of cakey bread Jewish people traditionally eat on the sabbath and holidays, btw, for anyone who doesn't know...)
Here's the dough after all the ingredients were added. The girl teaching us said she usually uses half white flour, half whole wheat, but I used about six cups white and two cups whole wheat, so it doesn't taste like whole wheat bread. (Because that's just not what I think of when I think challah...) We also used some rosemary, which is really delicious...
Now here's the dough after I let it sit for 40 minutes! It grew!
Then we punched it...also known as kneading.
Then came the braiding. I made one regular braided, and one round, because Rosh Hashanah is coming up, and traditionally you eat round challah on Rosh Hashanah.
The little ball of dough sitting there is called the hoffrish, which I learned you traditionally separate from the challahs and bake before discarding, because in ancient times it was for an offering to the temple...which seems like one of those outdated traditions I'm not such a fan of, but I went along with it for the learning experience ^^;
Then I carried them back to the dorms, which was interesting. XD;; I brought all my stuff up to the fourth floor, because my floor doesn't have an oven. And I baked them!
...and they are delicious. ^___^