Hafrashas Challah | Imamother

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Fri, Jul 28 2006, 12:17 pm

CHALLA BAKING MADE SIMPLE
By Sara G

As we know, Jewish women are given three specific Mitzvos, which have been written up in this Newsletter, and elsewhere, many many times. One of them is the Mitzva of taking Challa. We get tremendous mitzvos and segulos for being mekayyim this Mitzva. I am sure (or hope) everyone has seforim and has been to shiurim on this topic. My goal here is to discuss baking and taking Challa in this article, and my purpose in this article is to explore the practical side of the Mitzva, for all Jewish women, ranging from young singles to those busy with a family, to be able to accomplish this Mitzva on a regular, or more regular, basis.

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 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 Zchar 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.

Some people only bake for yomtov, since they need a lot of challah. Some bake for Shabbos, but buy for yomtov because they are so busy with all the other preparations. Following 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 the scope of this article, and certainly about a lot more than only baking challa. Some of my wisdom comes from various Baala Boostas I have known, and I have given credit l?shaym omrim. And the rest comes from my experiences. Please glean out from this article what you can, 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, blow your nose, or attend to your family. 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 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 neighbor downstairs, Simcha, that you can do two batches or you may need to run three batches in order to have enough dough kneaded for 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.)

Let?s first discuss the ingredients. I refer you to the Purple Lubavitch cookbook for an easy treatment on measuring out the flour. They discuss adding whole wheat flour and various other additions that you will have to calculate the weight of, if you want to use them. 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, a la the Kinneret method, and then bake it fresh on Friday afternoon or right before the Simcha or even on yomtov, if your oven is on. By the way, you make the bracha on taking challa right after you mix and divide up your dough.

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, that you probably will need to bake a lot of challos, and you will need it all every single week. If not, do not despair, there are still a lot of things you can do with it.

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.

The mother of a friend from work, who lives in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, bakes a batch every week and send challos to all her married kids. 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 kid 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 challah is a little dense; you may get more if you have a longer rise.

So far, you?ve baked challos and have made enough lovely, regal, Shabbosdike-looking challah loaves, enough for Shabbos for your family. Good. Let?s see what else we can do with that dough. Do you usually get drop-in guests? You need enough on hand for extra people. Do you want or need Lecham Mishnah for each of the boys or men at the table? If it?s summertime, or 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 can 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 can 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 Beis Rivka cookbook when she was only 9 years old. It?s simple to do, even without a recipe. You can experiment with freezing this, too. (You can actually buy this sort of garlic bread already frozen, I think Ungar?s make it.) Alternatively, you can just make the loaf and freeze it plain. You can add the margarine and spices after defrosting, and cutting up, 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, I think it?s special just for Shabbos. So when I make my extra batches in my bread machine, I make them different. But that?s up to personal preference. Or, one week you can make white challa, one week whole wheat, another week rye or pumpernickel, and keep some of each in the freezer for variety. You have to know what your family and guests want. 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, sauteed 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 pareve or fleishig 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 adjar 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 bracha 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.

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?dike 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, and make it pareve or dairy. You can keep it in the freezer, in a foil pan, ready to use from the freezer in a toaster oven. Or you can make smaller squares for pizza roll-ups. (
They store well wrapped in wax paper, and 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 eggrolls, 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.

In general, if you set up your home schedule, you will see that you can use the leftover challa if you want to. Perhaps a single person will not use that much bread every single week, however, a family certainly can, given the above guidelines.

When my friend Malkie, from Morristown, NJ 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 straight to the grocery store, if there are no leftovers to quickly heat and eat. Sliced challah 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.

And, as far as the leftover challa, you can easily make homemade croutons that are delicious! Just let the bread sit out (or toast) until hard, then sauté ©n very little margarine or oil with the herbs of your choice. They can be frozen for extended use. 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 and the bracha is 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!

One and a Half
3 tsp dry bulk yeast
6 cups flour
8 tablespoons sugar
3 eggs
9 tablespoons oil
2 tsp salt
1 cup water

2 cups
1 cup

1 T
2 1/2 tsp

1/4 cup Oil
2 T Honey
2 Eggs
? cup Water
2 cups Flour (mixture of bread/regular)
1 cup WW flour (pastry if possible)
1 1/4 tsp Salt
1 T Sugar
2 ? tsp Yeast (bulk)

My friend says that my challah might be mezonos.

One and a Half
3 tsp dry bulk yeast
6 cups flour
8 tablespoons sugar
3 eggs
9 tablespoons oil
2 tsp salt
1 cup water

I use 1 tablespoon dry yeast, 6-8 cups flour, 8 Tablespoons sugar, 3 eggs, 9 tablespoons oil, 2 tsp salt, and a cup of water.