Yakityak's Challah Recipe
I've spent years developing my challah recipe. Success with bread recipes are highly dependent on elevation, ambient temperature and humidity. (Quality of ingredients matters too.) For your reference, I live at sea level with generally cool temperatures and high humidity. You may need to adjust your rising time, amount of liquid, use of gluten, etc. to suit your locale. If you are short on time, you can reduce the kneading time and omit the first rise, but this will affect the crumb and it may not rise as high. Regarding gluten - I find it gives me a much better rise, but you can certainly make challah without it.
Ingredients
- 1 cup warm water
- 2 pkgs active dry yeast (or 1 tblsp, 1 tsp, 1/2 tsp if using from a jar)
- 1/2 cup sugar
- 1/3 cup oil
- 2 eggs + 1 yolk
- 1.5 tsp kosher salt
- 2 tblsp gluten
- 4.0 - 4.25 cups bread flour + for kneading out
- 1/2 cup raisins (optional)
- 1 egg for brushing
- sesame seeds
Method
In a large bowl, mix the yeast and sugar. Then dissolve them in warm water. Let stand for 5 min to proof it (make sure it bubbles).
Add the salt, oil and egg and mix thoroughly.
Gradually add flour 1 - 2 cups at a time, mixing after each addition. In my conditions, I add only up to 4.25 cups initially. (I prefer to add only 4 cups, and use the remaining ¼ cup on the kneading board.)
As mixture stiffens, begin kneading the dough until it becomes smooth and elastic. If it is still very sticky (and it usually is because this is an oil and egg bread), do not add more flour beyond the 4.25 cups. Instead, grab a (not sharp!) butter knife to scrape the sticky dough from your hands, go wash them (breathe and count to 10) and then oil up your hands lightly. Repeat the oiling as necessary, but do try to not add so much oil that the composition of the dough changes. Remember that as the gluten develops, the dough will "gain some character" and will be grabby instead of sticky.
Knead for 12 minutes, add raisins if you want for the last 3 minutes of kneading. If you are concerned that the dough has not developed its gluten well enough, use the "windowpane test" as a benchmark and knead until it hits that.
Let rest in a large bowl for 45 min in a closed oven that has been warmed at 350 F for only 1 min (1st rise). Leave the oven light on (it helps maintain the temp).
Punch down the risen dough, split it in half, and then split each half into 3 parts.
Roll the 6 balls into sausage shapes, tapering the ends.
Braid into two loaves on a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper. To make an oval loaf, braid tightly at the start, loosely in the middle and tightly at the ends and tuck the ends of the braid underneath.
Place the tray back in the oven, and let rise for 1 hour with the light on. Remove risen loaves.
Preheat oven to 350 F.
Bake 25 minutes.
Remove loaves from oven, brush with a beaten whole egg and dust with sesame seeds. (If you are not using sesame seeds you can actually brush the egg on at the start of baking, but I have found that in my climate even the lightest touch of the brush can cause a bit of collapse, so you may want to do it this way regardless.)
Return to the 350 F oven for another 5 minutes.