Daring Baker Challenge | Challah Y'all!

In a "celebration" of past Daring Baker and Daring Cook challenges, Lisa challenged all of us to search through the Daring Kitchen archives and pick any one we'd like! The REAL challenge was picking which delicious recipe(s) to try!

And guess what  I tried making...

This beauty called Challah!

Challah is a bread of celebration in Jewish tradition. At a time when white flour was considered a luxury, its use was reserved for either the wealthy or for festive events. In Judaism, the Sabbath is a weekly holiday and therefore is a festive occasion. It was around the 15th century when Jews in parts of Austria and Germany adopted an oval braided loaf from their neighbors to make the Sabbath special. These fancy shaped loaves made with white flour were seen as a fitting way to honor the Shabbat (Sabbath), symbolized in Jewish culture as a queen, therefore deserving of the finest one can achieve. In honoring the Sabbath as a day of rest, two loaves are traditionally put on the table. This is generally seen as a representation of the double portion of manna provided to the Children of Israel on Fridays during their wandering in the desert after fleeing from Egypt. This double portion allowed them to maintain the commandment to not do “work” on the Sabbath.

Ok, enough history and general knowledge. When the daring baker challenge was revealed I was so excited with the choice available for this month. I then quickly picked this bread challenge because I was planning to bake bread for a long time and somehow wasn't finding time to do that. I decided to take half the measurements in the recipe given. Didn't want to churn out huge loaves of Challah that no one wanted to eat you know! So decided to play safe and started the process just to find out that the yeast had expired. After 3 iterations, I just chucked it (almost half kg :-( ) and bought new yeast from the nearest supermarket and got cracking.

Before Proofing

After Proofing

Yummy crusty Challah

Easy Challah Recipe

(from templedavid.org)

Ingredients

4 cups (360 gm) all-purpose (plain) flour

1 cup (240 ml) warm water

1 package (2¼ teaspoons) package rapid rise yeast

½ (115 gm) cup sugar

2 large eggs

1 tsp. (6 gm) salt

1 egg beaten with 1 tsp. water

Directions:

1. Measure flour, sugar, and salt into a large mixing bowl.

2. In a separate bowl (or in the bowl of your stand mixer) combine water and yeast, allow to sit 5 minutes until foamy.

3. Add 1 ½ cups of the flour mixture to the water and yeast mixture, beat until well combined. Cover with a dishtowel, let stand 30 min.

4. Add two eggs to the dough, beat again.

5. By hand or with your dough hook knead in the remaining flour mixture. Knead approximately 10 minutes.

6. Transfer to an oiled bowl, cover, let rise one hour.

7. Punch down dough, knead approximately 3 minutes.

8. Divide dough in two. Shape each half as desired (3, 4, or 6 strand braid).

9. Place loaves on parchment covered or greased cookie sheets, cover with a towel, allow to rise one hour.

10. Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

11. Brush loaves with egg wash.

12. Bake at 400 degrees for 10 minutes. Reduce oven temperature to 375 degrees, bake until golden crust forms (about 25-30 minutes).

13. Transfer to a wire rack to cool. 

Whole Wheat Plum Mini Cakes

I bought some plums the other day. Looked like they weren't ripe yet. The one I bit into was tart. I waited for 4 days to bake with it. I wanted to make something delicious but healthy at the same time. So imagine my pleasure when I came across a whole wheat plum cake recipe. Well, in no time, the plums were pitted, chopped and I was ready to bake my first plum cake.

I have made cakes with plain white sugar so far. I have used demerrera sugar in cookies but not in cakes. So, it was interesting that whole wheat coupled with demerrera came out surprisingly tasty. I hadn't expected the punch of flavour and texture from a wheat cake.. what's more, the plums were so tart that it it hits you when you bite into the rich flavoured cake. Maybe it is a good idea to chop them into smaller pieces next time.

While serving it is a good idea to heat the cake and serve it with vanilla ice cream. Yum combination!

Whole Wheat Plum Mini Cakes Recipe

Ingredients:

• 100g butter, room temperature,
• 100g brown sugar
• 2 eggs
• 1 tsp pure vanilla extract
• 4-5 drops almond extract
• 1/2 cup whole wheat flour
• 50g almond meal
• 3/4 tsp baking soda
• 50ml buttermilk
• 5-6 plums, halved
• Low fat cream or ice cream to serve

Method:

1. Preheat the oven to 190C. Lightly grease  10-12 individual muffin tins, or ramekins.
2. Beat butter and brown sugar until light and mousse like.
3. Add eggs, vanilla extract and almond extract and beat again.
4. On low-speed add both flours and baking soda and mix.
5. Fold in the buttermilk.
6. Divide batter between prepared tins. Top each with half a pitted plum, cut side up.
7. Place on a baking sheet and bake at 190C for about 35 minutes / until done.
8. Leave to cool in tins.
9. Loosen edges with a butter knife and turn out on serving platter. Serve with a drizzle of low at cream or vanilla ice cream.