Recipe#2505

Title: Challah 06

From: dav~*~ida@jdc.org.il (The Chocolate Lady (Davida Chazan)) 
 Newsgroups: rec.food.baking 
 Subject: Jewish egg bread 
 Date: Mon, 20 Jan 1997 10:47:03 GMT 
 Message-ID: <32e34963.16280484@news.netvision.net.il> 

50 grams fresh yeast
 dash sugar
 1/3 cup warm water
 3 tbs salt
 4 tbs white sugar
 4 tbs brown sugar (or all white sugar)
 1/2 oil
 1 cup boiling water
 1/2 cold water
 5-6 eggs (reserve one yolk for brushing the tops just before baking)
 1/4 cup wheat germ (optional
 flour
 Combine yeast, sugar and water, set aside.  In a large bowl mix
 salt, sugars, oil and boiling water.
 Add cold water.  Add eggs one at a time, and beat well.  Add proofed
 yeast.
 Now, start mixing flour into this batter.  I start with whole wheat
 flour first and then go onto white flour until it is just the right
 consistancy for kneading (comes to about 1 kg flour in total).
 Remove from bowl and knead for 8-10 minutes until no longer sticky,
 don't add too much flour!  Return to bowl and cover to rise till
 doubled in bulk.
 When doubled, punch down and knead out big bubbles.   Take out of
 the dough a small piece (about the size of a large olive) and set
 on the side of your baking pan (this is the Challa, and it should
 be burned after the bread is baked and the prayer said on this bit,
 afterwhich you throw it away).
 Cut the dough into the required number of pieces - I make 6 medium
 sized Challot from this, which fill up the baking pan which came
 with my oven.  It will make 4 fairly large ones, or 2 humoungous
 ones.
 For my 6 Challot, I cut the dough into 12 pieces, make 'snakes'
 and then cross the snakes in the middle to come to what looks like
 four strands.  I then do the braid using the under two L, over one
 R, under two R, over one L pattern.
 Place these on a greased baking sheet, cover and let rise another
 1/2 hour.  Then mix the leftover egg yolk with a bit of water (about
 1/3 cup) and brush over the tops (and sides, whatever) of the
 loaves.  Bake until done (about 25 minutes).  Remove immediately
 from the pan and put on a rack to cool.