December 23, 2008 - 5:53am
challah that looks like a soccer ball
I am preparing to give challah as Holiday house gifts in Spain, the three attemps have lacked the bulbous protuberances that I remember from Clevelands finest jewish bakeries.
What can I do to make the big bumps come out? They are theere when the bread is braided, they disappear upon baking with the oven spring
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1. Use a stiffer dough.
2. Don't use bread flour, use all-purpose flour. (I Use Canadian all-purpose flour which is different than american AP flour, apparently)
3. After rolling out your ropes, dredge them in flour so that they don't run together as easily.
See this video:
http://ca.youtube.com/watch?v=9IFoIe_zbmE
(part II)
http://ca.youtube.com/watch?v=s0WmCsdHV50&feature=related
This Video shows a very good method, highly recommend it:
http://how2heroes.com/videos/dessert-and-baked-goods/challah-bread
I've had results like that with challahs, when I've added too much fluid to the dough.
Add the fluid a little at a time until you have a just workable dough. I think this is what arzajac means by a stiffer dough.
Sometimes you have to adjust the quantities in a recipe, especially the amount of fluid to flour. Depends on the type of flour.
Looking again at your photo, there are random bumps on the surface which suggests that the yeast or levain isn't developing evenly.
The only difference between these two breads is the amout of water used. The first one uses a half cup of water while the bottom one uses about two tablespoons less.
This is a bread made with a very soft dough. I like the texture of the final product but the ropes run together and the look is not as impressive as with a stiffer dough.
This is a bread made with a stiff dough. It looks better but I find it a bit tough and it certainly doesn't keep very long.