Challah, in large quantities -
Greetings -
With the Jewish holidays approaching, I'm considering methodologies for making quantities larger than what will fit in my KA stand mixer and am looking for advice. I have a challah recipe I've played around with and perfected over the years, basically "Almost Grandmother's Challah", found all over the 'net. Each recipe makes 2 loaves and is, I believe, at or about the capacity of my 6-qt mixer. I need a dozen finished loaves, one of which is going to be a 'mega-loaf' in a 7-braid configuration to be used as a centerpiece on one of the tables. So really, I need 7 batches. Having watched videos on 'stretch and fold' as well as no-knead, I was wondering if I could just mix the whole thing in one plastic bus-pan (those things they use to bus tables in restaurants, I already have a couple) by hand, using stretch-and-fold to develop the structure, rather than making 7 individual batches in the machine doing the traditional kneading on the hook and ending up with 7 pails of rising dough each at a different stage of rising. The recipe does call for beating sugar into the eggs and then whipping the whole thing with oil, all before adding any flour, so my plan would be to use the mixer for that part, then dump that liquid (35 eggs, 7 cups of sugar, some honey and 3.5cups of vegetable oil) into the flour and proceed with mixing. My concern is trying to knead by hand a blob of dough containing 49 cups of flour - I'm a sturdy guy in pretty good health for a 54-year-old, but certainly not a muscle-man and not one who does not regularly expend the energy I imagine would be required to accomplish a more traditional kneading with such a large batch. Any and all thoughts are welcomed!!! Among other reasons, I'm trying to streamline this because I also have to cook the rest of the meal, much of which cannot be done in advance.
Thank you
Philip