Challah

So last night I made 4 cups of sourdough sponge and woke up at 5 this morning to knead my dough for two loaves of challah. I promptly went back to sleep until 10:00; sourdough takes a while to rise.

I decided to try two new shapes this time.


The simple three braid in a circular loaf (I'm most familiar with this shape as we often make pascha like this. My foremothers probably stole the ideas from neighboring Jewish people.)

And a long five stranded braid loaf. I'm getting better at braiding bread and am contemplating a sourdough Pascha experiment. Commercial yeast only became available in the late 19th century so it must be possible to make pascha from sour dough yeasts. Pashcha is exceptionally heavy and calls for butter, eggs, honey,

The Challah turned out rather nice; though I got impatient and it probably would have done well with another hour of rising after being braided. The longer the bread rises the more the braid stands out.

Here is the round loaf.

The five strand is my favorite shape so far and I think if it I let it rise more it will be rather lovely.

I'll be taking them both to Dan's house tommorow for the Western Minnesota Steam Thresher's Reunion. We'll also be making grape and plum jelly so expect lots of pictures.

~Eikon