I don't think this is a sourdough question, because I've had this problem with other doughs also, though not in the last few years.  I'm wondering what factors influence whether the braids retain their definition during proof & bake.

This is my second time making Maggie Glezer's beautiful-looking sourdough challah; the first time, in February, I attributed the (aesthetic) failure of the bread to our cold house - it's usually under 20 degrees and frequently under 18 in the winter.  Not a problem right now... the house was over 25 degrees, more like 27-28 the entire time I was preparing this dough.

I revived my firm starter and followed the recipe exactly.  All steps seemed to go extremely, prodigiously well.  Yet despite the dough being very cooperative during braiding, the challah came out with no differentiation between the braids, just a weird-looking vaguely football-shaped loaf.

For photos and step-by-step, please visit my blog here.

I make a lot of challah and Can anyone give advice as to why the braids would fail so utterly, and how to make them beautiful like all the photos I've seen of this challah for next time?

Thanks!

Jennifer in BreadLand

http://breadland.blogspot.com

When I saw Txfarmer’s post with a sea-star pattern pumpkin challah, I knew I wanted to give it a try (thank you for the inspiration!).

Since I was responsible to bring bread to the Thanksgiving dinner we were invited to, I thought this would be a beautiful addition to the table. I also followed Txfarmer’s lead when it came to the recipe and used Maggie Glezer's "A Blessing of Bread” pumpkin challah one. I have never made challah before, but often bake Zopf and brioches, and the dough consistency is very similar.

The shape comes from Hamelman’s “Bread” (p. 314-316): you have to make several six-strand braids which are then intertwined. It really wasn’t all that hard since the directions and pictures were very clear. However, I definitely needed to concentrate when I did the braiding and consequently had to shoo everyone out of the kitchen. :)

It was a fun project and I really enjoyed it! And on top of everything it tasted really good. The deep yellow color from the pumpkin was also wonderful.

 I hadn’t really paid much attention to chapter 9 in “Bread” before this project. The entire chapter is dedicated to different braiding techniques. I wanted to try a few more so yesterday, with the rest of the pumpkin puree, I made my regular Zopf recipe and substituted some of the liquid with the pumpkin. I just love the color this gives and the taste is really good as well.

For this loaf I followed the Winston Knot technique (p. 306), without bringing the ends together at the end. One basically braids with 12 strands, but in groups of 3. I gave this to my neighbor to thank him for cutting my pizza stone a few days ago. For some reason I had two pizza stones, but of course could fit only one into my oven. I bake all my round loaves on this, but could never fit long baguettes on it (thus they were baked on sheet pans). I hadn’t bought a bigger baking stone, because they are all quite a bit thicker than a regular pizza stone and thus need to be pre-heated much longer. I love that the pizza stone basically provides the same effect, but because of its relative thinness, doesn’t need to be heated up so long.

My ‘can-do-it-all’ neighbor cut my second stone perfectly to complement my first one, using the surface in the oven to the maximum. I LOVE it!

This is the very easy two-strand braid, coiled up into a rosette shape (p. 297).

Mmm, those torn-away strands are so good with butter.

And finally my regular four-strand braid.
I was on the phone when these loaves were in the oven and forgot to cover them with aluminum foil after about 20 minutes (something I usually do), thus they got just a tad too dark.

I don't think I am done with pumpkin in my breads yet...

I'm new here, and I see a lot of pics of folks' loaves of bread and thought I too would share some pics of some of mine.

I make all sorts of bread, but sourdough is certainly my favorite to work with. I have 4 starters including one wheat starter going all the time.

Here is the first sourdough challah I made. This bread has an awesome flavor.

And here is the second one I made. You can see that I forgot the seeds on this loaf.

Third one. Getting better and better.

Number 3 opened up and ready to eat.

Here is where I get brave. This is a loaf of Neapolitan challah.

Here it is cooling. The strawberry and chocolate didn't spring quite as well as the vanilla. I believe that it was over kneaded. But it was fantastic.

Sliced up and ready to eat. I serve this with honey butter.

Thanks for looking at my bread. I'll post other loaves later.