I never bake challoh!

sky

Tue, Nov 06 2018, 9:29 am

I enjoy having home made challah.

When I used to make 5 lbs at a time it was too hard and I dreaded that it took up a whole day.

Now I make 6 cups in my bread machine early Friday morning. I either braid into 3 small challahs or just put the dough into challah molds. And bake right before Shabbos. (I work during the day).

I love the taste of fresh challah and I figure it saves at least $600 a year or more.

Last edited by sky on Tue, Nov 06 2018, 9:36 am; edited 1 time in total

amother

Scarlet

Tue, Nov 06 2018, 9:30 am

I've been married over 20 years and only started making Challah after I'd been married for about 8 years, when we moved into a house with a kitchen bigger than a matchbox and bought a large mixer. I work full time and bake on Sundays only, a 5 lb. batch about every 3 weeks, depending on how much company we have.

For me, the short tefillah that is said after taking is the only form of davening that I do other than when lighting candles Friday night and it means a lot to me. Anyone who is home when I take challah gathers around to say "amen" to my bracha and I feel that with my busy life, it's my way of connecting spiritually.

Everyone should do what works for them and their family - and stop with the guilt!

zaq

Tue, Nov 06 2018, 9:35 am

The mitzvah is to TAKE challah, which is like terumah, if you’re going to bake a certain volume of dough. The mitzvah is the terumah, not the baking. When you buy challah, the baker has taken the challah already. There are plenty of other mitzvot you can do to increase your “bank account” if you’re not into baking.

No one should feel guilty about buying challah. Bakers need parnassah, too. I made challah once in high school, to discover if I could, once as a newlywed, to show off that I could, and never again until our kosher bakery closed. Now I bake because we have no bakery and I hate supermarket challah, which costs a fortune and tastes like absorbent cotton.

Tzutzie

Tue, Nov 06 2018, 9:37 am

I do not have the attachment to my machine to make challah (around $150 to buy) but I do have the hook for light doughs so we bake but not challah.

As a child, in 5th grade we were taught how to braid challah in school. Since then I've always made the challah at home. I've done the dough at a younger age but hated braiding it my mother's way. I messed it up to often. Heck, my mother messed it up often. It was so complicated. With the new way it was so much fun.

And so challah became my "job". And because I wasn't yet 12, she'd make the bracha. And oddly enough, it always stayed this way. I'd bake and she'd make the bracha on it. When after I was 12 or married.
Typing this out, I'm raising my own eyebrows. Lol!

Before we moved away from the city I lived a 3 minutes walk from my mother's house and I'd still go there to make her challah and take home to small ones for myself.

But since we moved we had a second child and even if I would be able to, I'd need freezer space which we don't have much of. And so we buy.
Sometimes my mil will give us some when we come to visit to say good shabbos.
Homemade challah is so much better.

But the best is still what works for you!!!!

amother

Yellow

Tue, Nov 06 2018, 9:42 am

I baked challah at the beginning of my marriage. I have not made homemade challah for many years now. My husband and I both enjoy homemade challah, but baking is very stressful for me. It's not something I could really manage to put into my schedule. But some people enjoy baking, and it's easy for them. I would love to eat it, I just don't want to make it!

imasinger

Tue, Nov 06 2018, 9:46 am

It's like most things.

Neither difficult nor time consuming if you're willing to put in the initial effort to learn, and not the end of the world if you choose to devote your energies elsewhere.

I personally do it like sky -- 6 cups of flour in the bread machine, shape, bake just before Shabbos. I'm not very good with my hands, but enough practice makes anything possible. I have done it enough that I can read a book or newspaper for most of the 10-15 minutes it takes to shape 4 loaves of 6 braid. I take a small piece without a bracha.

zaq

Tue, Nov 06 2018, 10:29 am

imasinger wrote:

It's like most things.

Neither difficult nor time consuming if you're willing to put in the initial effort to learn.

Speak for yourself, please. I do it all by hand and it is both difficult and time consuming. Considering it’s been at least ten years I think I’ve put in the initial effort to learn.

zaq

Tue, Nov 06 2018, 10:35 am

amother wrote:

I would like to take challah- and that’s only happening when I bake- but I have zero freezer space and only need 2 small ones per Shabbos. How does everyone else manage with freezer space if they don’t have more than one small freezer?

How do you think? They bake a smaller volume, not 5 lbs of flour, and freeze less other stuff. Just like anyone else who doesn’t have a big freezer.

amother

Firebrick

Tue, Nov 06 2018, 10:37 am

I've never made challah on my own, as in never unless it was a group project in school or a mother-daughter shul activity. I can't remember my mother baking challah either.

In my home, DH is the baker. He used to bake challahs occasionally on a Sunday and freeze a big batch but we no longer have enough time or enough freezer space for this.

I buy bakery challah from a small store in the same shopping complex as a big kosher supermarket. It's quite delicious and they're happy to sell it to me and I'm happy to cross it off my list.

amother

Azure

Tue, Nov 06 2018, 11:10 am

zaq wrote:

How do you think? They bake a smaller volume, not 5 lbs of flour, and freeze less other stuff. Just like anyone else who doesn’t have a big freezer.

That’s what I’m struggling with- freezer space. I work full time and need the freezer space for suppers. Challah baking takes time and effort, at least for me, if I were to start doing it, I would have liked to bake once every 5 or 6 weeks and freeze the rest.

amother

Fuchsia

Tue, Nov 06 2018, 11:25 am

I started baking after about 12 yrs of marriage. My children love homemade challah. But I actually love bakery challah, too. We used to go away often in those early years of marriage and the homemade challah wasn't very good where we went! So I was never compelled to try it on my own. But now I have a good recipe! Still, I really enjoy those weeks b4 and after a yomtov when I don't get to do the baking and buy challah! Honestly, its whatever works. For years I didn't bake and it was fine. Then I tried one week because my daughter was pushing me to do it together with me and the family loved it so much that I kept at it.

amother

cornflower

Tue, Nov 06 2018, 11:45 am

Dh very much prefers my home baked challah over shop bought one. So I bake almost every Friday. It doesn't take that much time - the way I do it, I mix up what I call pre-dough, takes 5 min. Put it covered in a corner to raise for 1-2 hours during which I do other things, then come back, mix in more flour, take challah and then braid and decorate the dough - 5 minutes. Let it raise for another 10-15 minutes, throw it in the oven for 25 minutes and that's that.
The actual manual work is maybe 10 to 15 minutes. The rest is letting it stand around on the counter or in the oven.
Start to finish 1.5 to 2 hours, most of which I spend doing other things. Oh, well, add to that afterwards washing up the bowl and baking form.
I've done emergency speed-challah in 45 minutes start to finish (but it was less tasty that way).
When we don't have home baked challah, I have to put up with a grumpy dh at every meal, so I have no choice...

amother

Scarlet

Tue, Nov 06 2018, 12:38 pm

Here are my tips for freezing challah:

1. Wrap each challah fully in foil.
2. Place challahs in Freezer ziploc bags. The freezer bags really do make a difference as they are thicker than the regular ones.
3. On Friday afternoon I take the desired number of challahs for all of Shabbos out of the freezer. Whatever I am using for Friday night gets put near/on top of the oven to defrost faster. Not on direct heat, but in a warm place, which the stove top usually is since I have the chicken and other foods inside the oven. Keep wrapped in foil.
4. Before candle lighting, I put the challah (still wrapped in foil) on top of the urn to stay warm until Kiddush.
5. The challah for the Shabbos day meal is put on top of the urn or cholent pot to warm up on Shabbos morning as early as possible, and the challah for shalosh seudos is put on the urn right after lunch. It does help that I purposely have one of the older version metal urns (not a pump pot, which doesn't really get hot). The challahs are always warm and soft.

Enjoy!

jewishmom6

Tue, Nov 06 2018, 12:41 pm

amother wrote:

I saw on this thread that several poster freeze challah. How do you made it stay soft and tasty that way?
I've tried freezing challah - it came out like styrofoam when I warmed it up, dry and brittle. How do you prevent that?

I braid and freeze the challah raw and bake fresh on friday.

zaq

Tue, Nov 06 2018, 12:42 pm

amother wrote:

Then you have several options:
1. Buy another freezer.
2. Cook supper more often in smaller quantity so you have space for challah.
3. Rent freezer space from a neighbor, the way the Amish do, lehavdil.
4. Find a very small recipe and bake biweekly. Try baking in a wonder pot.
5. Teach your dc to bake, and when they are old enough, have them bake weekly or biweekly.
6. Resign yourself to baking only after your dc leave home or you retire.

Bread machines can make one or two-pound batches of dough. One pound will make four four-ounce rolls which should do for one week. You would have to bake them in an oven, not in the machine.

amother

Azure

Tue, Nov 06 2018, 1:17 pm

zaq wrote:

Lots of food for thought.

1. I have no space for an additional freezer.
2. My meal prep system works great for me at the moment so I’d rather not mess with that.
3. It’s very unlikely that my neighbor will have freezer space, as she too has only one freezer, but I’ll ask anyway.
4. This might be doable. I’ve never heard of a wonder pot before but I’ll do some research and see if that’s an option. Even if baking bi-weekly might be too much, it’s a good option even for only once every few weeks.
5. Dc are too young to bake.
6. I might find a middle ground and bake in the wonder pot(don’t yet know what exactly that is) every couple of weeks and that way I’ll be able to do the mitzvah more often.

I’m gonna look into the bread machine too.

Thanks so much for taking the time to articulate your thoughts and help a yid do more of mitzvah of challah!