October 22, 2015 - 2:02am
Dairy Free challah
I am baking for children with a dairy allergy and cannot use butter. Challah is their favorite bread, but I have been unsuccessful swapping Earthbalance for the butter, or swapping an equal amount of canola oil for the butter. Are there any other reliable butter substitutes for a challah bread?
Share
Challah should always be dairy free (or, authentic challah recipes should be). Jews don't mix meat and dairy and since bread is eaten with meals and especially challah is eaten on the Sabbath where it is custom to have a meaty meal bread is never made with any dairy products.
Challah is an enriched bread usually made with eggs, sugar and oil. There are some very nice recipes out there. I've made Emmanuel Hadjiandreou's challah which was very nice. I have the recipe at home which i'll message to you asap.
Found the recipe
https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=S5ysAwAAQBAJ&pg=PA78&lpg=PA78&dq=emmanuel+hadjiandreou+challah+recipe&source=bl&ots=rPTUtHeRuF&sig=aF_fEjGXIfOq2rRiBYZEG9wn-CI&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0CE4Q6AEwBmoVChMIrrKI7OrVyAIVi7gUCh3qgQVf#v=onepage&q=emmanuel%20hadjiandreou%20challah%20recipe&f=false
Thank you so much! I am excited to try his different kneading technique, and if it works the book has wonderful reviews.
Lovely recipes. A very kind fellow TFL'er bought me this book when my sourdough baking took off. He was my mentor. There are a few mistakes in this book (like all books have) but the Challah recipe is fine. I even substituted half of the flour for whole wheat and it still worked great. His kneading technique is very effective and is the technique throughout the book for all his recipes. Develops the gluten really well. If you buy the book then i'll point out the corrections to be made (but might be corrected already in later editions). Best of luck.
It is good to see books incorporating stretch and folds into the procedures. I remember reading a comment from Glezer that she started using an autolyse and stretch and folds for her challah even though her "recipes" don't mention it.
One thing about challah, the final shaping works the dough enough that even if your kneading isn't perfect the final product usually turns out fine (the low hydration helps too).
I'll have to check out the book. I have been looking for another one to read.
ETA: Of course all his recipes use medium eggs and I normally have large.
I found this page stating some of the errors:
http://www.farine-mc.com/2012/04/how-to-make-bread-by-emmanuel.html
for the levain de champagne bread (which is delicious btw) is some books say 100g for the wholewheat when it should read 150g for wholewheat. I really recommend this recipe.
Not to derail the original post, but for the levain de campagne (you had me excited with the word champagne instead of campagne) I guess it depends on how hydrated you want it. With all that wholewheat you could easily push the 79% hydration vs the 71%. Or just use less water (250g would put you at 68% with the 100g of wholewheat). But I could easily see pushing the wholewheat up like you say to almost 30% vs closer to 20%. I would try both. It is fun to see the difference and they both will turn out great.
That said, I think the salt sounds low either way.
Abe is correct. Most traditional challah is made with oil instead of butter to avoid meat and dairy being eaten together. Any solid fat should make no difference in texture and you can usually get away with using a straight oil swap but since butter is about 80-85% fat and 15-18% water (with milkfat solids making up the rest) you can reduce the oil by 15-20% and replace it with water.
Now you said you have been unsuccessful swapping out the butter. Is it the flavor that you are missing? Perhaps if you gave us the recipe and what you mean by "unsuccessful" we can help better.
My go-to recipe is by Maggie Glezer:
http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/my-challah-235867
If you want one that is more like those in Europe (less sweet and eggy) then I know a lot of people that like this one:
http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/chernowitzer-challah-235871
but have yet to try it. I've only done Challah the once. I'm eager to try this one. Thanks for the recipe Maverick.
I have been making bread from trusted recipes for two years, but I'm ready to get creative. The information you shared on substitutions is very helpful, and now I have two trusted recipes to try between Maggie Glezer and Emmanual Hadjiandreou. I appreciate the help.
I personally love how the 6 strand challah comes out and always recommend trying it.
http://www.finecooking.com/videos/braiding-challah.aspx
Oh, and that video also is using her "My challah" recipe (same as the epicurious one which both are the same as in her book). There is a link to the recipe on there that gives an illustrated version of the braiding which might be good to print out (or if you don't watch the video):
http://www.finecooking.com/recipes/challah.aspx
I have been baking challah for 7 years more or less and have never done it "dairy". I use almond or soy milk rather than most of the water. I use canola oil (or vegetable oil) and use flour, egg, vanilla, sugar/brown sugar, and sometimes pumpkin to replace some of the water. THere are many recipes, but you absolutely do not need dairy ingredients. I find the almond milk to give it a nice moisture.
As others point out you do not normally use dairy in challa. Maggie Glezer's A Blessing of Bread has many versions of challa both with commercial yeast and soudough. It is great and you can get on Amazon.