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Recipe Review: Classic Challah — King Arthur Flour January #bakealong

Posted on January 15, 2018 | Leave a comment

Classic Challah bread. This is a three-braid loaf. The golden brown color can be attributed to including honey as an ingredient and the egg wash applied before baking.

“I could live on challah bread, the Jewish kosher bread, quite happily.” Dan Aykroyd

Classic Challah

I first was introduced to Challah (pronounced Hah’-lah) bread when I moved to Columbia, Missouri in early 2001. Uprise Bakery, then located in a basement underneath a shoe store, on certain days baked, if I recall correctly, Challah bread. The Challah bread from Uprise Bakery was an egg bread that dried out quickly. I could not eat a loaf on my own before it dried out and was only fit for the foxes living down on Hinkson Creek to gnaw on.

Two Challah loaves on the Jewish Shabbat table commemorate manna falling from heaven when the Israelites wandered the desert after the Exodus. The manna fell a double portion the day before Sabbath or a holiday. Depending on the source describing the Jewish tradition, Challah is used and treated differently in religious rituals. A small portion of the dough, or baked bread, is set aside as a representative Temple offering. Challah can refer the act of separating the offering before the dough is braided. Ingredients can also be determined by religious tenets. The Shabbat and Jewish holiday meals start with two whole loaves, or twelve loaves, of kosher bread. By braiding six strands, the two loaves could represent twelve loaves. I would recommend you research Challah bread and discover its role in Jewish rituals for yourself.

King Arthur Flour Classic Challah bread recipe came together with ease. I had all the ingredients in the pantry. I weighed the dry and wet ingredients in grams. I used canola oil as the vegetable oil. While everything worked well this time, next time I make this recipe I will bring the eggs to room temperature before adding and mixing. Mixing 115 F (46 C) water and cold eggs made me nervous. One package of instant yeast did not quite fill a tablespoon, but I used only the one package. I combined the ingredients in the order listed. Using a stand mixer, the dough mixed and then kneaded with a dough hook for eight minutes. I then consulted the family baker, my father, who agreed with me the dough was much to wet. I was expecting a wet dough because of the eggs. Some sweet bread dough is a wet dough, but this was beyond expectation.

I weighed the dry and wet ingredients in grams.

There is something called the Baker’s Ratio or Baker’s Percentage. All good bread recipes follow this “magic” or “golden” ratio: 5 parts flour: 3 parts liquid. It does not matter if the bread is dinner rolls made with real, melted European butter or pizza dough made with cheap olive oil, both follow this ratio. Same flour, salt, and yeast, different tasting oils. The Baker’s Percentage is a ratio that determines how much of any ingredient needs to be present in proportion to the weight of flour. Egg or sweet breads tend to be on the wet side, violating the Baker’s Percentage because the eggs provide more liquid. For this recipe I did not weigh the eggs. I did not think to weigh the eggs. Next time I use eggs I will weigh the eggs. This Challah recipe also calls for 85 g honey. Honey is also a liquid, so you need to account for that weight in the 3 parts liquid. I calculated with the called-for 482 g flour, you would be permitted 337 g liquid. This Challah recipe’s 113 g water + 74 g vegetable oil + 85 g equals 272 g total liquid. This allows an additional 65 g for two liquid eggs. Two local farm-raised winter eggs should weigh, without shell, about 95 g. This would produce a wet dough.

challah dough after 8 minutes of kneading

I mixed the ingredients in the amounts called for by the recipe. After 8 minutes of kneading by the stand mixer I stopped to assess the situation. The dough is too wet.

A tablespoon of flour, each weighing 10 grams, was added at a time to the mixing dough for a total of 4 tablespoons, or 40 grams, before the dough looked and felt right. Under the Baker’s Percentage, the flour addition brought the weight of flour to 522 g and the estimated liquid weight to 365 g. The stand mixer kneaded for an additional 4 minutes.

After the addition of 40 g flour and four minutes of additional kneading, the dough was fine.

The dough was allowed to raise in a greased bowl on top of the refrigerator for 2 1/2 hours.

Challah dough and English muffin dough at the end of their first raise.

Challah dough (on your right) at end of the first raise on top of the refrigerator. Next to Challah dough is English muffin dough.

Working on a greased kneading mat, I weighed out three balls of dough, each weighing 306 grams. I used no flour when I worked the dough. I watched the King Arthur Four braiding demonstration video while the dough balls rested. Each ball was hand-rolled into a shorter than 20-in (51-cm) rope which shrank back every time I lifted my hands. The ropes rested on the greased kneading mat covered with greased wax paper for 10 minutes. The ropes did not shrink after resting, and stayed 20 in (51 cm) long. The three-braid loaf seemed most appropriate for a simple evening soup dinner. The loaf braided easy. I placed the loaf on a parchment paper covered silicon baking mat covering a heavy baking pan.

Braiding a three-braid Challah loaf. I used a greased surface and did not add any more flour when working with the dough.

The three-braid Challah loaf on a heavy baking sheet with a silicon baking mat and parchment paper before raising.

After raising for 2 1/2 hours, the three-braid Challah loaf is ready for an egg-water wash before being placed in a 375 F (190.5 C) oven.

I covered the loaf with a greased wax paper. The braided loaf raised for 2 1/2 hours on top of the refrigerator. I brushed the egg-water glaze over the entire loaf. I set the heavy baking sheet onto a larger heavy baking sheet as directed by the recipe in order to prevent the loaf bottom from over browning or scorching. The loaf baked at 375 F (190.5 C) for 20 minutes. I rotated the loaf at 20 minutes for even baking in the oven.

The three-braid Challah loaf has baked for 20 minutes.

I placed a piece of tented aluminum foil over the loaf. The loaf was baked in the oven for another 13 minutes.

Classic Challah bread. This is a three-braid loaf. The golden brown color can be attributed to including honey as an ingredient and the egg wash applied before baking.

At the end of the 13 minutes the internal temperature of the bread was 200 F. The 13 minutes may have been to long to continue baking. Because of all the heat escaping when I turned the baking sheet, I was concerned with not allowing the bread enough time undisturbed in a hot oven. The aluminum foil slowed the browning, but did not completely stop browning. You will want to watch and monitor the bread towards the end of baking time so that it does not scorch.

The bottom of the Challah loaf.

This bread went very well with the Cajun-spiced soup. You can get 16 servings from the bread. I took 1/3 of the loaf, sliced, to work on Monday. The Challah loaf was enjoyed by all. The texture, color, and taste was an enjoyable change from the whole wheat or sourdough breads my family usually makes. I am glad I now have Challah bread within my repertoire.

There are different ways to approach the ritual meaning or what Challah bread represents inside Jewish culture. I suggest you read and contemplate for yourself.

Wikipedia is a good introduction to Challah bread and its use in religious life. Challah

Another source of Challah bread information. https://headcoverings-by-devorah.com/Challah.html

Here is another source of information: https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/challah/

I would be remiss if I did not include the Uprise Bakery website. They moved to a building they share with Ragtag Cinema and 9th Street Video on Hitt Street next to the Presbyterian Church. http://www.uprisebakery.com/

A website that explains the Baker’s Percentage is here: https://bread-magazine.com/master-formula/

Recipe Review: Cinnamon Star Bread — King Arthur Flour Holiday #bakealong

Posted on January 11, 2018 | 1 comment

Cinnamon Star Bread is the King Arthur Flour Holiday #bakealong recipe

“Anyone who gives you a cinnamon roll fresh out of the oven is a friend for life.” — Lemony Snicket, from When Did You See Her Last? (2013) (All The Wrong Questions book 2)

Cinnamon Star Bread

If you have not read Lemony Snicket’s All the Wrong Questions series, you have missed a fun experience. This is not a book to read in public unless you want to be scowled at by serious, stuffy adults who dislike bursts of laughter. If you have read the much darker toned Edward Carey’s The Iremonger Trilogy, you will enjoy the much lighter toned All the Wrong Questions books. These are “You must read this!” books. Both take a 17-degree tilt on reality, and move forward from there. Like all excellent books cataloged as junior fiction, the books entertain middle school readers as well as adults.

While the Cinnamon Star Bread is not a cinnamon roll, pulling off a piece of Cinnamon Star Bread is better than any plain cinnamon roll. Each braid is a right size special event serving. The bread presents very well. What you bake looks exactly like the picture on the King Arthur Flour website. It appears you spent hours crafting the bread when you have not. If you have at most ten people over for a holiday breakfast or brunch, there won’t be any leftovers.

I have made this bread twice. Once in mid-November 2017 before the U.S. Thanksgiving holiday as a test to see if how the bread would work as a holiday meal dessert, and, again in December for Christmas Morning’s family gathering. Both times were a success.

The bread ingredients added as listed on the ingredients list.

For the November baking I used the by-volume ingredient list. I combined all the ingredients into a stand mixer in the order listed. By accident I grabbed from the pantry the King Arthur bread flour. I used Bob’s Red Mill potato flour. I used Parkey® margarine instead of unsalted butter. I used vanilla extract. The water was heated to 115 F (46.1 C) as listed on the instant yeast package. The nonfat dry milk made the dough reek of rotten milk. That is part of using dry milk, I have decided. I then used the stand mixer to knead the dough for 8 minutes. After raising for an hour the dough had doubled in size. I divided the raised dough into four balls and let rest covered in the oiled mixing bowl I used for the first raise for 15 minutes.

The four layers are ready to slice into sixteen strips. The biscuit cutter in the center preserves the space in the center. I cut out from the biscuit cutter to the edge.

The kneading mat has circle sizes printed on it so I was able to roll each disc out to the 10-inch (25-cm) circle. I moved the rolled disc onto a pizza tin older than I am. I brushed the egg glaze onto the disc, then sprinkled with 2 plus some tablespoons sugar-cinnamon mixture. I used Frontier ® Coop Ceylon Cinnamon and regular granulated sugar. This process was repeated with the next two discs with all remaining cinnamon sugar mixture sprinkled onto the third disc. The forth disc was placed onto the stack of discs. A 3-inch biscuit cutter was placed in the center of the stack. With a pizza cutter, I nicked the edge of the stack to eye-ball measure out 16 strips. Once I was satisfied with an even sized 16 strips, I gently cut the stack from the center out with the pizza cutter from the edge of the biscuit cutter to the edge of the stack.

Cut strips ready for braiding.

This is the December bread. The strips were braided into eight braids. To braid, take two strips and twist thumbs out – wrists up twice, and pinch the ends together. I tucked the ends under.

This is the November Bread ready to be placed on a baking sheet and raise.

Taking two strips I twisted the strips out (thumbs out, wrist up) twice. I pinched together and tucked under the ends of the two strips. I did this all the way around so there were eight braids. After removing the biscuit cutter, I slid the braided star from the pizza tin onto the parchment paper on a large cookie sheet. The star raised for about an hour.

After applying an egg wash, the bread baked for 15 minutes in a 400 F (204.4 C) oven. The result was beautiful. We had the still warm bread for Sunday evening supper dessert. No knife needed. You simply pull a braid from the center and you are served.

November Cinnamon Star Bread

On Christmas Eve 2017 I baked the Cinnamon Star Bread, again. After a conversation with my father, who is the baker in the family, I printed the ingredients listed by the gram from the King Arthur website. I weighed the dry ingredients and Parkey® margarine to the gram as listed on the ingredients list. This time I used the King Arthur all-purpose flour. Everything else was the same as the November baking. The lukewarm water (115 F or 46.1 C as listed on the instant yeast package) was still measured by volume. I do not know if it was because grams is more precise than measuring dry ingredients by volume, but the dough was a better quality dough after raising for 1 hour. The dough felt softer, and worked better on the kneading mat.

When it came time to layer the discs, I placed parchment paper onto the pizza tin to assist sliding the star bread onto the baking sheet . This arrangement worked wonderfully. After a one-hour raise and application of the egg wash before going into the oven, the star bread baked in 15 minutes.

December Cinnamon Star Bread

A note of caution needs to be made when slicing the 16 strips. On one of the strips of the December star I sliced to far into the top disc and, I thought, it did not look right. I was not pleased with the look of the finished product. It was not as pretty as the November star bread. If you want a uniform center, be careful how you slice into the center for the braid strips.

Cinnamon Star Bread will be wonderful for potluck dinners. This bread should also do well at bake sales and silent auctions. If you want to impress the in-laws, this braided bread to do that. If you follow the instructions exactly, and apply the egg wash, the braided bread will look like the King Arthur Flour picture. The bread is best served with good quality coffee. A dark breakfast tea would also go well with this.

The #bakealong recipe can be located at https://blog.kingarthurflour.com/2017/11/01/cinnamon-star-bread-bakealong/

Lemony Snicket’s All the Wrong Questions series website is here: http://www.lemonysnicketlibrary.com/

Here is National Public Radio’s review of Heap House. You must read this book! As the reviewer Amal El-Mohtar points out, you do not want to read this book in a place where you are expected to be quiet. https://www.npr.org/2014/10/17/356989525/heap-house-is-a-treasure-of-a-trash-tale

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Tagged #bakealong, Desserts, food, holiday baking, King Arthur Flour, pastry, Recipe, Review

Recipe Review: Rugelach — King Arthur Flour October #bakealong

Posted on October 27, 2017 | Leave a comment

“I use some of their recipes in supporting roles—apricot jelly roll, mandelbrot, and honey cake. My mother Madeleine’s rugelach were unbelievable. I could not use them here because they would have upstaged everything and everyone else. Apple cake is food for a short story. Rugelach require a novel.” — Allegra Goodman discussing the short story “Apple Cake” in an interview with Cressida Leyson in the June 27, 2014 The New Yorker

Rugelach

I have for several months wanted to participate in King Arthur Flour’s bakealongs but did not make the time. These are interesting baked goods I would not have otherwise made. Several recipes looked intriguing, and I do like to be intrigued. When the email came across my dashboard, I thought the Rugelach recipe looked good. I made up my mind to do make the pastry.

Rugelach is a traditional Northern and Eastern European Jewish holiday pastry with Middle Eastern roots. The Jewish-American cream cheese rugelach originates from this Ashkenazic food tradition. Some scholars think the pastry was brought to the United States by Jewish immigrants from Hungary or Yugoslavia. Historically the rugelach dough was made with yeast and butter or sour cream. This would have made for a delicate pastry that would have been easily overworked. Linguistically, rugelach has several spellings depending on which Northern and Eastern European country you are located. Yiddish scholars trace rugelach to a Polish origin, but it depends upon the source you are reading. In the Polish tradition, rugelach is traces back to “rogal” which means “horn” as in an animal horn or a musical instrument. When shaped into a crescent, the pastry looks like a horn. In the modern, postbiblical Hebrew rugelach is similar to “roglit” meaning “trailing vines” which could also describe the shape of the rolled, crescent pastry.

First, a note on ingredients. I used Parkay® margarine instead of butter. Here in Northeast Kansas it is possible to get good European butter, but you drive several hours to the European-specialty Shoppe. Parkay® produces a nice taste whereas the pale butter you buy in the grocery store, even the better stores, tastes flat and blah.

The recipe provides two suggestions on how to make the dough. I did not use the two suggestions. I sifted the flour and salt together, then with a pastry cutter cut the butter and cream cheese until they were the size of the end of my thumb. I then cut into the flour-fat mixture the 1/3 cup sour cream. I understand the sour cream was to add moisture so the dough could be formed, but the sour cream I used was not wet enough. The flour and fats would not stick together. I added at one time 1 tablespoon of cold water. Now, I could have added the water 1 teaspoon at a time, but I did not want to overwork the dough. I simply looked at the dough and asked myself if 1 or 2 teaspoons of water would do, and I knew 4 would be too much. That is where I came up with a tablespoon.

flour cut with margarine and sour cream

Following along with Step 3, I wrapped each disk of dough in plastic wrap and placed the disks in the refrigerator. I waited an hour. The dough was no way firm enough to be handled. The three disks chilled in the refrigerator for 3 hours.

While the dough was in the refrigerator, I made the filling. I used ½ cup of dried cranberries and ½ cup dark brown sugar. The mixed varieties of walnut meats were collected by a friend who was kind enough to share. The walnut meats are sweet and snack worthy. I used a blender which worked fine.

blender with rugelach filling

I did not add the cinnamon to the brown sugar-walnut-cranberry mixture. My chemistry background shouted to let sleeping alkaloids and essential oils that make cinnamon so wonderful lie for as long as possible. I placed the brown sugar-walnut-cranberry mixture in the refrigerator until I was ready to use it.

walnut-brown sugar-cranberry filling in blender

After 3 hours when I decided the dough was firm enough, I removed one disk at a time from the refrigerator. Using a silicon dough mat with a 10-inch circle imprinted on it, I rolled the dough as directed. I carefully moved the 10-in diameter circle onto a dented metal pizza tin that is as older than me. I brushed water onto the dough. I then placed 1/3 cup filling plus a ½ of a 1/3 cup filling onto the circle and pressed the filling into the dough. Then I evenly dusted the filling covered dough with 1 t. cinnamon.

rugelach dough with filling ready to cut

It took me all three disks before I was able to cut the dough evenly into nice shaped wedges. I used a pizza cutter. The first disk I made eight wedges instead of twelve. The second disk had very uneven sized wedges. I finally got it right on the third try. The first two disks I just cut away attempting to measure the correct divisions by eye. That did not work. The third disk I thought it out and pre-cut the edges to measure out twelve even triangles.

rugelach ready to go in the preheated oven

Each triangle was rolled wide side to narrow side. I used a silica pan liner for the first pan, then decided to cover the pan liner with parchment baking paper for the other two pans incase the brown sugar melted and pooled. Each pastry was brushed with milk before being placed on the cookie pan. I refrigerated the cookie pans for upwards of 10 minutes before placing in the preheated oven. The rugelach baked for 30 minutes before the bottoms of the pastries were browned to my liking.

baked rugelach

This is a fun pastry I will be making again. The cranberries provided a hint of bright fruit. The crust was buttery. Next time I will experiment with orange marmalade as the glaze under the brown sugar-walnut-cranberry mixture, and I will add dark chocolate chips. I also want to substitute dried apple pieces marinated in brandy for the cranberries. There is plenty of room to play with creating my own filling for rugelach. Only lack of imagination will limit what one can do with this pastry.

Websites for more information on King Arthur’s #bakealong and Rugelach

https://www.kingarthurflour.com/bakealong/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rugelach

http://www.foodtimeline.org/foodcookies.html#rugelach

http://www.theluxuryspot.com/the-complete-rolled-history-of-rugelach/

Recipe Review of “Perfect Baked Eggs” by Celeste Rogers, in Cook’s Illustrated, November/December 2012

Posted on November 12, 2012 | Leave a comment

Figure 1 A baked egg in a cream-spinach bed in a 10-ounce ramekin.

The recipe and article “Perfect Baked Eggs” by Celeste Rogers (no relation to me that I know of) in Cook’s Illustrated, November/December 2012 is an attempt to demonstrate how to bake an individual egg with a spinach filling (Fig 1). For the most part this is about as good of instructions on how to bake an egg without overcooking it that I have seen. The ingredients are basic ingredients already in the kitchen and freezer.

I have looked for a recipe to successfully make little, single egg dishes for years. I have tried several recipes including Scott Peacock’s “Eggs with Cream, Spinach, and Country Ham” in Gourmet, January 2008. Peacock’s “Eggs” recipe should work but never has. I have since traipsed along tinkering with the egg dish every fall and winter looking for something I can use as a contribution to a holiday breakfast. Rogers’ “Perfect Baked Eggs” worked well so that I would not have to tinker with it if all I wanted was a simple egg dish. I will have to jazz it up to make it Christmas Morning material.

What I will criticize is the size of casserole recommended for the dish. Rogers recommends “6-ounce ramekins with a 3 ¼-inch diameters, measured from the inner lip.” I think this is to small. I only have 4 6-ounce ramekins and had to use 2 10-ounce ramekins in order to fill out the six servings the recipe made. The difference surprised me (Fig 2). The 10-ounce containers did not overcook the eggs after the 6 minutes in a 425 degree oven followed by the ramekin siting 10 minutes on a wire rack. The eggs in the 6-ounce dish are firm after cooling and will be fine to eat, but with the 10-ounce casseroles the soft egg will nicely mix with the spinach filling.

Figure 2 Side-by-side comparison between the baked egg cooked in a 10-ounce ramekin and a 6-ounce ramekin.

I recommend the use of Parmesan cheese. It is a dry cheese that will not make the dish greasy or watery like cheddar or any other generic cheeses in the dairy section of the average grocery store. If you can spend the money to purchase the good Italian Parmesan cheese, do that. You will not be disappointed.

The oven time Rogers recommends, 6 to 8 minutes at 425 F if using a metal pan to hold the ramekins and 500 F if using a glass backing dish, is to long. The 6-ounce ramekins were overcooked. Temperatures are correct, I think. Since the demise of Gourmet I have had to look to Cook’s Illustrated for good recipes. I have noticed Cook’s Illustrated recipes tend to recommend times that will overcook the dish. I have wondered if this is an effort to make sure the food is fully cooked, even when the writer and recipe recommend checking the internal temperature. This is a recipe where, in order to prevent overcooking you will be standing or kneeling in front of the open oven door watching the eggs cook until the egg whites are just full white.

I will make the “Perfect Baked Egg” recipe again. I will also tinker with it. What I have found with these egg casseroles is 5-ounce spinach and 5-ounce finely chopped “woodsy”-tasting mushroom is good. What I like is adding, per ramekin, a half slice home-smoked bacon, frozen firm then sliced into 1/8-inch slivers with kitchen shears, then fried with grease discarded (bacon grease does not add anything good to the taste of the egg casserole no matter how fresh the smoked bacon is so stick with Rogers’ 2 tablespoons butter to cook the shallot in at the beginning) and two large, cooked shrimp, frozen firm then sliced into less-than ¼-inch pieces added to the spinach/mushroom/shallot/half-and-half/Parmesan mixture.

Recipe and demonstration video can be found at the Cook’s Illustrated website if you are a online member by searching for “baked egg” .

I served the baked egg with French Onion Soup (Gourmet magazine recipe), milk, and for dessert Chocolate Pudding Cake.