Post Pesach/Passover Back to Making Challah Rolls

I must admit that I don't bake challah every week, though we do eat my challah rolls pretty much every week. That's because I bake batches that last sometimes even two months, depending on how many invitations we get and how many rolls in the most recent batch.

This year Passover ended rather late in the week, so with all the post Pesach chores, there was no way I could manage a batch of challah rolls. And for whatever reasons I couldn't find the time and energy the following week. Also my husband had bought enough rolls to suffice a second week. So this week I knew that I had to bake some.

I took down my simple recipe from the fridge and made sure I had enough flour. I prefer a very fine 70% whole wheat. It's "almost white" but much healthier. 

Ingredients

2 heaping tablespoons of dehydrated yeast
4 cups of warm water
1 cup vegetable oil of your choice
1 cup of sugar
pinch of salt
2 kilo (4.4 lbs) flour

Instructions

1. in a large bowl add almost all of the dry ingredients; just leave out some of the flour
2. add the water and oil
3. mix well, and then cover and leave until it rises (doubles in size)
4. then add more flour until the dough is "dry" enough to handle without it sticking to your hands
5. then knead, pound, keep turning over for over five minutes-- Yes, I do it by hand and don't have a mixer. If you have a mixer, make sure it can handle yeast dough and the quantity you're making. You may have to half or quarter the recipe.
6. Once you've kneaded it, coat it top and bottom with some oil, then cover again until it rises again.
7. Once it rises, pound it down, cover and let it rise again.
8. When it doubles, "take challah" according to these instructions or from another site, family or friend. 
9. Finally cover your baking pan with special baking paper, prepare a raw egg for "painting the challah."
   
10. Shape your challah or rolls, and place on the paper far enough apart so they won't get attached when baking.
11. "Paint" with the raw egg, and then let rise until close to double.
12. Bake in hot oven. Start at 180 C until brownish, and then lower to 160C until they look ready and there's a "hollow" sound if you tap.
13. Turn off the heat and then cool.

Yes, there are lots of different recipes. I used to bake with eggs and less water, but I changed it to what I wrote here. Enjoy, and tell me how they come out.

Honeyed Challah Rolls! Great Results

 

my latest batch of challah rolls
baked with the cheapest honey
rather than sugar

For decades I've been making challah rolls with whole wheat (now 70%) flour, never white. In addition I use brown sugar, which has a stronger flavor, much more suited to whole wheat flour than white sugar. Click here for the standard recipe. Since we're not big bread eaters, I bake challah rolls and freeze them. This way each batch will last for over a month. Last week my local store still hadn't gotten its new supply of brown sugar, and I really wanted to bake a Post-Passover supply of challah rolls. 

step 1

Since the honey I had bought before Passover was relatively cheap, probably not the greatest quality, I decided to do an experiment and use honey instead of sugar.

Now the dilemma was how to measure honey without wasting a lot or eating/licking what stayed on the measuring cup.

Luckily I remembered a trick/technique I had once read about. As you can see in the photos, it's really pretty easy.

First I put flour in the mixing bowl. Of course I had to calculate how much honey to use instead of sugar. I checked with Pâtissie (Pastry Chef) Google. Some experts said use half the quantity you'd use for sugar and others said three-quarters. 

step 2

My standard recipe calls for a cup of sugar for approximately two kilos of flour. So I placed a half-cup measuring cup in the flour and made sure that the flour indentation matched the measuring cup. I had a plan....

Finally I had a plan. I poured the honey into the indentation and let it overflow a bit, as you can see in the photo. Since there's disagreement among the expert Pâtissies, I figured it would be wise to be "generous."

My research also said to decrease some of the water, since the dry ingredients were less than usual, and honey is moist, but the truth is that I used almost the same amount of water and oil. And for some strange reason, I didn't need more flour. Just so you know, I knead by hand, since I don't have a mixer.

step 3

No doubt you are curious as to the success of my experiment. The challah was much lighter and rose a lot more than usual. Granted that I had a fresh package of dehydrated yeast, but over the decades a new package hasn't made any real difference in the density of the baked challah. 

In another couple of months, when it's time for a new batch, I'll try baking with honey again. Let's see if I get the same results...