No Knead Challah finally!

mha3484

Sun, Aug 17 2014, 2:38 pm

I wanted to share this recipe that I have been making the past few weeks. I have been baking consistently for the past year without a lot of success. This is making me want to make and eat challah again!

Thanks Artisan Bread in 5 minutes a day!

1 3/4 cups lukewarm water
1 1/2 tablespoons granulated yeast (2 packets)
1 1/2 tablespoons salt
4 large eggs, lightly beaten
1/2 cup honey
1/2 cup unsalted butter, melted (or neutral-tasting vegetable oil such as canola), plus more for greasing the cookie sheet
7 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
Egg wash (1 egg beaten with 1 tablespoon of water)
Poppy or sesame seeds for the top

1. Mixing and storing the dough: Mix the yeast, salt, eggs, honey, and melted butter (or oil) with the water in a 5-quart bowl, or a lidded (no airtight) food container.

2. Mix in the flour without kneading, using a spoon, a 14-cup capacity food processor (with dough attachment), or a heavy-duty stand mixer (with dough hook). If you're not using a machine, you may need to use wet hands to incorporate the last bit of flour.

3. Cover (not airtight), and allow to rest at room temperature until the dough rises and collapses (or flattens on top), approximately 2 hours.

4. The dough can be used immediately after the initial rise, though it is easier to handle when cold. Refrigerate in a lidded (not airtight) container and use over the next 5 days. Beyond 5 days, freeze in 1-pound portions in an airtight container for up to 4 weeks. Defrost frozen dough overnight in the refrigerator before using. Then allow the usual rest and rise time.

5. On baking day, butter or grease a cookie sheet or line with parchment paper, or a silicone mat. Dust the surface of the refrigerated dough with flour and cut off a 1-pound (grapefruit-size) piece. Dust the piece with more flour and quickly shape it into a ball by stretching the surface of the dough around to the bottom on all four sides, rotating the ball a quarter-turn as you go.

6. Divide the ball into thirds, using a dough scraper or knife. Roll the balls between your hands (or on a board), stretching, to form each into a long, thin rope. If the dough resists shaping, let it rest for 5 minutes and try again. Braid the ropes, starting from the center and working to one end. Turn the loaf over, rotate it, and braid from the center out to the remaining end. This produces a loaf with a more uniform thickness than when braided from end to end.

7. Allow the bread to rest and rise on the prepared cookie sheet for 1 hour and 20 minutes (or just 40 minutes if you're using fresh, unrefrigerated dough).

8. Twenty minutes before baking time, preheat the oven to 350-degrees F. If you're not using a stone in the oven, 5 minutes is adequate. Brush the loaf with egg wash and sprinkle with the seeds.

9. Bake near the center of the oven for about 25 minutes. Smaller or larger loaves will require adjustments in baking time. The challah is done when golden brown, and the braids near the center of the loaf offer resistance to pressure. Due to the fat in the dough, challah will not form a hard, crackling crust.

10. Allow to cool before slicing or eating.

http://www.thekitchn.com/recip.....43363

Dolly Welsh

Sun, Aug 17 2014, 2:41 pm

Sounds terrific. Yes, that's a good cookbook. They have a video too, on You Tube. Thanks for posting.

You know bread must never contain milk or meat.

Because bread looks parve, and most people assume it is parvbe without thinking, it must always contain only parve ingredients, as an important precaution.

Your post is inspiring.

vintagebknyc

Sun, Aug 17 2014, 2:53 pm

finally! do you know how many loaves this makes?

Dolly Welsh

Sun, Aug 17 2014, 2:57 pm

It's seven cups of flour.

Wow. Keeps five days in fridge, a month in freezer. Good, good.

vintagebknyc

Sun, Aug 17 2014, 3:03 pm

slightly confused, bear with me.

all the no-knead artisan bread I've made has been in a cast iron lidded pot, as was original recipe from sullivan street bakery a zillion years ago.

you're not baking in a pot? you're not adding a pan of water to the oven? it's still crusty and gorgeous?

Dolly Welsh

Sun, Aug 17 2014, 4:04 pm

The baking in a closed pot was to get a crust. The small oven the pot makes keeps the bread's steam right near it, and steam makes crustiness. But this particular bread isn't crusty at all. That's fine.

You could say that getting a crust, and making a dough that, given enough time, kneads itself, are two different issues.

Our ancestors saved their energy, perhaps, by doing a long slow rise overnight, with no kneading. Perhaps kneading was an innovation, invented to enhance fast production? You do physical work, in exchange for getting your bread the same day, instead of having to wait for it until tomorrow.

For instance, anybody who doesn't have a machine, doesn't want to store a machine, or clean one, or who wants to spare her arms and hands, or who is in a rush and has no time to knead, will like no-knead methods.

Both methods work, and are fine; they satisfy different situational needs.

I hear that you must remember to leave the cover loose, or it can go boom on you, with the expanding gases. Or some people might put holes in the cover.

You Tube has no-knead bread videos.

mha3484

Sun, Aug 17 2014, 4:38 pm

I started out making the Sullivan street recipe using a Silicone mold and my le cruset and it came out pretty well. This is more of a traditional challah with egg and oil.

vintagebknyc

Sun, Aug 17 2014, 8:06 pm

mha3484 wrote:

I started out making the Sullivan street recipe using a Silicone mold and my le cruset and it came out pretty well. This is more of a traditional challah with egg and oil.

how many loaves... three?

mha3484

Sun, Aug 17 2014, 8:41 pm

I think each recipe of 3 cups flour yielded two challahs. I used a challah mold that is sold in the gf aisle. I use the mold for the covered half and the flipped it over for the part you bake uncovered.