Why do I say to give yourself some time? Well, because there's a lot of sitting and waiting but good things come to those who wait, I promise!
Things that you'll need (other than the ingredients listed on site):
1. 2 cookie sheets
2. PAM or something to grease said cookie sheets
3. Clean counter space
4. Flour to put on said counter space
After you've made the dough, waited for it to rise, cut in half and then into thirds to make the braids, I can't recommend enough the 1 hour resting period before putting the bread in the oven. Look at what a difference it made:
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| Before |
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| After 1 hour |
However, here's one change I'd make (because we all knew I had to make a mistake somewhere): the recipe says to leave it in the oven for 40 minutes but after 25 minutes, I smelled burning and yes, I did burn a little off the bottom so keep an eye on your bread and note that 40 minutes is way too long! I knocked and got the hallow sound under both loaves so they were definitely done baking!
TOTAL COSTS: Free!
Assuming you have yeast, honey, vegetable oil, flour, eggs and salt
TOTAL AMOUNT OF TIME: About 3 1/2 hours
This includes the waiting times to let the dough rise
EASY-PEASY SCALE (1 super easy - 5 very difficult): 2 out of 5
The only "hard" thing might be the braiding but if you know how to braid, it should be easy-peasy for you to do!
Kat, I bake challah fairly often (and for the past couple decades or so), and just this last weekend did I have the 25 min./burned on the bottom phenomenon you describe. I think the problem is two-fold: dark pans, like yours above, will cause the bottoms to brown faster, and if you put two pans side-by-side (I'm just guessing here, 'cause most ovens aren't large enough to accommodate these over/under), air won't circulate well enough and will be trapped under the bread. I usually make one enormous loaf from a 7+ C. of flour recipe (it's quite impressive!) and 45 minutes is usually just about right.
ReplyDeleteI love what you're doing here! What a great blog!
Lynn - thank you so much for these tips! You're absolutely right, the pans were side by side. However, I would love to see what one giant loaf would look like! And I'm so glad to hear you like the blog, thank you!
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