what to do with leftover dough

YALT

Fri, Nov 09 2007, 12:47 pm

HERE'S CHOC MOOSE"S ARTICLE (found it in a search)

CHALLA BAKING MADE SIMPLE
By Chocolate Moose

Jewish women are given three specific Mitzvos, which have been written up in this Newsletter and elsewhere, many, many times. They are Taharas Hamishpacha, Bentching Licht, and taking Challa. My goal is to encourage you to start baking Challa, if you aren?t already. We get tremendous mitzvos and segulos for fulfilling this Mitzva. I am sure (or hope) everyone has seforim and has been to shiurim on this topic. I would like to discuss baking and taking Challa in this article, and to explore the practical side of the Mitzvah for all Jewish women, ranging from young singles to those busy with families.

Simply put, we all need to have Challos for every Shabbos, and Baruch Hashem, we have Shabbos every single week. We need Challos for Simchas and for Yomtov, too. In large Jewish communities, you probably can buy delicious, inexpensive Challa. You can even buy the frozen Kinneret-style Challa, and defrost and bake it yourself (more about that later). However, you don?t get the schar (reward) for baking and taking Challa with any of the above. And the ingredients are not expensive. Maybe buying challos doesn?t put a dent in your budget, but if you figure the cost of flour (even the good, hi-gluten yeast isn?t expensive), yeast, and your oven, you really save money, and time, if you have to travel or make a special trip to the store to pick up your challos. And who can put a price on the heavenly smell of freshly baking Challa, which fills the house and announces, ?Shabbos is coming! And it?s going to be good!?

Some people only bake for Yomtov, since that?s when they need a lot of challah. Some bake for Shabbos, but buy for Yomtov, because that?s when they are so busy with all the other preparations. Now you will see how you can bake and take Challa, not on your busiest days, and still have fresh Challa for your family and guests!

Some of the following comes from Nechomie Greisman?s book, and if you can buy or borrow it, you?ll learn a lot more than I can discuss in one article, and certainly about a lot more than only baking Challa. Some of my wisdom comes from various balabustas I have known, and I have given credit l?shaym omrim. And the rest comes from my own experience. Please glean from this article what you may need, and in its merit, may we see Moshiach Tzikeinu speedily!

Depending on your circumstances, you may already be baking Challos on a regular basis. If you have a mixer (heavy-duty is recommended) or bread machine, a lot of your work is already done for you, and you won?t be getting your kitchen too dirty, or a manicure messed up, if that is a concern for you. You can also be interrupted in the middle to take a phone call, sign someone?s homework, or feed the baby. If your mixer is big enough, you can just put your ingredients in and have it mix and knead, and all you have to do is take a portion of the dough for the bracha.

If you already do this every week, you can stop reading my article right now! If you have a bread machine, depending on the size, I learned from my downstairs neighbor, Simcha, then you can do two batches or you may need to run three batches in order to have enough dough to fulfill the mitzvah When you run two or three doughs, you can make them a little different if you want to, making one whole wheat, or adding sauté¥¤ onions to another, for example. You can make one or more mezonos, if you use juice as a majority, but not as the only liquid. (See note about Rov Osdoba regarding Pas.)

A word about the ingredients. I refer you to the famous purple cookbook (also known as ?the Lubavitcher cookbook?) for an easy explanation of measuring out the flour. They discuss adding whole wheat flour and various other additions for which have to calculate the weight, if you want to use them. Or of course you can do it the old-fashioned way, just by measuring cups. If you can get to a food co-op or a food club, where you can get wholesale prices, or have gourmet stores near you, you can get wonderful fresh flour, and possibly whole wheat and white whole wheat flour, as well as rye flour, spelt flour, or whatever else you want to try. As far as yeast, I get it in bulk once or twice a year from King Arthur Flour, a mail order place, and keep it in the freezer, but you can get really good results with the fresh yeast from the refrigerator section of your local store, or even the dried packets of yeast that come three on a card. They mail order flour, too, but shipping can add up.

On to handling the dough. Next, a la Nechomie Greisman, you don?t have to mix, knead, and bake all at one time. You can mix, refrigerate, and bake up to a day later. You can mix, knead, and shape, freezing all or some of the dough, especially if you?ve made different kinds of dough. You can let frozen dough defrost and rise for a few hours, the Kinneret method, and then bake it fresh on Friday afternoon or right before the Simcha or even on Yomtov, if your oven is left on. By the way, you make the brocha on taking Challa right after you mix and divide up your dough, no matter when you are actually going to bake it.

To take Challa, you do need to use quite a bit of flour and water and you may have extra dough to be used up. If you have a large family or a lot of guests, this will not be a problem. If not, do not despair, there are still a lot of things you can do with all the extra dough.

First of all, you can bake one batch every week and exchange some or half of it with a neighbor or friend for the fish or soup or whatever you think would be an even exchange. When I was single, I remember Sarah from Carroll Street and her downstairs neighbor doing that, and not only with Challa. You can barter with whatever works for you, and make Erev Shabbos easier for everyone.

The mother of a friend from work, who lives in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, bakes a batch every week and sends Challos to all her married children. My friend in Morristown, Malkie, likes to send Challa when she sends dinner in honor of a new baby. But you needn?t limit it to that; perhaps you want to send freshly baked Challa to your neighbor who is busy planning a simcha, or who just came back from vacation, is stressed for whatever reason, and could use a goodwill gesture. No one turns away fresh, homemade Challa!

Personally, my dough is put up Friday morning, in two batches, one right after the other, in the bread machine, while I am doing other things in the kitchen, and either left out until I come home from work or refrigerated until the first child comes home from school and takes it out. This method works for us year-round. I make two large loaves for Shabbos, with a few nice rolls. My Challa is a little dense; it would be less so if we gave it a longer rise.

So far, you?ve baked Challos and have made enough lovely, regal, Shabbosdik-looking challah loaves, enough for Shabbos for your family. Good. Let?s see what else we can do with that dough. Do you sometimes have unexpected guests? You need enough on hand for them. Do you want or need Lechem Mishnah (two complete Challos) for each of the boys or men at the table? If you have boys that come home from night seder at different times on Friday nights, you?ll need several small Challos in addition to your regular loaves. Or, for Shalosh Seudos or Melave Malka, you may want to have a bunch of rolls made up from that dough. So you may want to make large Challos, smaller challos, and an assortment of rolls for each week.

As far as using the dough from the Challa for Shabbos only use my friend, Chanie Rothman from Carroll Street, serves garlic bread after the fish course on Friday night, hot from the blech. She uses store bought challah, but you can easily do this with your own Challa, too, after baking. You braid or just bake it in a loaf pan, or just long, on a cookie sheet, like the Italian or French bread you see in the stores. You then let it cool (slice it up if you want to), slice down the middle, and then add your margarine and spices. My daughter, Little Moosey, wrote this up in her class?s Bais Rivkah cookbook when she was only 9 years old. It?s simple to do, even without a recipe. You can experiment with freezing this, too. Alternatively, you can just make the loaf and freeze it plain. You can add the margarine and spices after defrosting and cutting, then heat it in an oven or toaster.

Personally, I make my Challa dough white and sweet, and keep it only for Shabbos use. We use whole grain bread the rest of the week. In general, I like to reserve the Shabbos food for Shabbos or Melave Malkah. In that way, we keep it special. So when I make my extra batches in my bread machine, I make them different. But that?s up to personal preference. Note that you have to use mainly water, not juice or soymilk, as the liquid, as discussed with Rov Osdoba. When you make and take Challa, it has to be Pas, not cookies!

My friend and former co-worker from OK Labs, Chanie, gave me this hint. She makes her own knishes with the extra dough. In her mother?s house, they would roll out any dough, and fill it with mashed potatoes, sauté¥¤ meat, or any sauté¥¤ veggie filling, fill, and bake until brown. You could use leftover mashed potatoes, grain such as kasha, or veggies from any par eve or fleshing dinner, collected in a container in the freezer until you have enough. My friend and also former co-worker from OK Labs, Pnina, used the boxed instant potato with great results. Chanie would keep these rolls in her freezer, and put them on the blech or atop a pot on the blech for Shabbos lunch use. They are also handy for Yomtov and extra guests, as you can just pull them out of the freezer as you need them. You could probably make separate knishes, too, it?s just more work and storage.

In the same vein, you can probably make kreplach with the dough, too, and boil it or bake it for the soup or as a side dish. You can probably make yeasted pastries like kippelach with cinnamon and sugar, or taiglach with honey, but you?ll have to ask your Rov about the brocha since the dough is Hamotzie.

My Bubbie Rivka, from Bessarabia, used to make the Purim hamantaschen Hamotzie because they were also the seudah. In the old country they had to make do with what they had, as there was not a lot of food back then. But these days, you do not commonly see a lot of Hamotzie pastries as the central ingredient of the Purim seudah.

Back to the extra dough issue. If you can?t incorporate the above, all is not lost. You can still utilize your extra dough. Let?s explore the non-Shabbos uses for extra bread dough.

You can certainly use the extra rolls for breakfast or lunch, especially if you?ve made a variety. That way, no one gets tired of the taste.

You can roll out some of the dough for your own homemade pizza. You can keep it in the freezer, in a foil pan, ready to use. It goes straight from the freezer into the toaster oven. Or you can make smaller squares for pizza roll-ups. (they store well wrapped in wax paper, and are easily removed one at a time). You may want to designate some of your dough as mezonos, see above, if you run two or three batches.

My daughter Rivka?s Bas Mitzvah party craft and lunch was homemade pizza, with a variety of self-serve topping. With her whole class coming, plus neighbors and friends from camp, we got to take Challa from just that batch!

If you are truly industrious, you may want to make your own bagels. If you live out of town, you may have to make your own bagels! You can also experiment with making your own pita bread. Both bagels and pita are nice with a variety of flour and additions, such as herbs or spices. English muffins are nice, too; just keep a little cornmeal on hand to dust the pans with. If you can make your own egg rolls, bourekas, or burritos(with ingredients as knishes, above) more power to you!

We are using some of the dough for hot dog and hamburger buns, as well. I ordered the pans from King Arthur, see above, to get the shape right. My family never liked the bought ones, and I never seemed to be able to get them in the store when I wanted them. They never froze well, and we always wasted the leftovers. Now I keep a few on hand in the freezer or keep the dough frozen for quick baking whenever I want them.

When my friend Malkie from Morristown was first married, she set up her home schedule very simply: Sundays fleishigs, Mondays milchigs, and so on. Each household has its own schedule. I work full-time and don?t like to be bothered with cooking breakfast and lunch on Sundays. So we pull out homemade bagels for breakfast, if available, and pizza for lunch. If we don?t have Shabbos leftovers for dinner, we always eat fleishigs, so hot dog and hamburger buns are in the plans, or garlic bread to eat with meatballs. We always make sandwiches on Wednesday nights, from our sandwich grill, when I go to the grocery store straight from work, if there are no leftovers. Sliced Challa is perfect for that, and if it?s toasted or otherwise cooked, it doesn?t matter if it?s really fresh or not.

If you freeze the sliced Challa right after Shabbos, pieces defrost very quickly if extra guests come by on any given Shabbos or Yomtov. You can do this with frozen whole Challos, too, and slice them right at the table. Pieces defrost in about 5 minutes, even away from the blech. Even if you are baking on a weekly basis, you may want to keep some frozen on hand. Or you may want to keep a variety for guests with special needs, such as spelt or oatmeal.

Another idea for leftover Challa: you can easily make homemade croutons that are delicious! (And buying them in the store is very expensive.) Just let the bread sit out (or toast) until hard, then sauté ©n very little margarine or oil with the herbs of your choice. These freeze well. Serve them in soups or salads for a garnish. You can also make Challa kugel from the leftovers. Just be sure to cut each piece less than a Kezayis to keep the brocha Mezonos. Cinnamon toast is popular for Melave Malkah, too, as is French toast, pareve or dairy, depending on where you baked your Challos. Lastly, our outdoor, feathered friends love homemade Challa and may not often get such a treat. Be sure to take a bag along on your next outing!
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Last edited by YALT on Wed, Dec 19 2007, 2:28 pm; edited 1 time in total