Maple Raisin Challah

When living in the East Village neighbourhood of Manhattan all those years ago, I loved popping into the wonderful Eastern European bakeries nearby for a bagel, bialy, babka, dark rye, and challah. Though it is not impossible to find challah in our small city, its distant relative, brioche, though much lighter in texture because of loads of butter, often substitutes. Since my baking bialys a la Hot Bread Kitchen Cookbook turned out well, I used their recipe for challah. Well that is not true, even if those bialys didn't come out as fantastic as they did, I would still have opted for that book as I appreciate any opportunity to hold that beauty in my hands, flipping through all the wondrous recipes, photos, and stories. Challah is made from yeasted dough that has been enriched with honey, eggs, and oil (making it parve, that is, neutral, neither meat or dairy). My returning to baking bread after a long hiatus meant the yeast languishing in our cupboard was not too fresh. The texture, therefore, was closer to a denser babka, then challah. Subbing maple syrup for honey gave an uplift in taste and adding raisins increased the contrast between salty and sweet. It was delicious, especially served with hot cinnamon apple cider.

Ingredients

Flour, white, bread or all-purpose, plus more for shaping, 315 g (2.5 American cups, that is, 8 fluid oz cups)
Sugar, white, 2 T plus 2 teaspoons
Salt, kosher, 3 1/4 teaspoons
Yeast, active, dry, 1 1/4 teaspoons
Pâte fermentée (see below), cut into walnut-size pieces
Egg yolks, large, 3
Maple syrup, 2 T
Water, warm, 3 T or more if needed (I used 8 T)
Oil (I used sunflower) plus more for coating the bowl
Eggs, large, beaten, 2
Raisins, Thompson, 150 g/1 cup (American cup, that is, 8 fluid oz)

Pâte fermentée

Water, lukewarm, 8 T plus 1 teaspoon
Yeast, active, dry, 2/3 teaspoon
Flour, white (bread or all-purpose)
Kosher salt, 1 teaspoon

Put water and yeast in a medium-sized mixing bowl and add flour and salt. Stir for a minute or two with a wooden spoon until a shaggy dough forms. Cover bowl with a plate, a damp, wrung-out tea cloth, or plastic wrap. Let stand for thirty minutes then refrigerate for a minimum of 8 hours and a maximum of 24. Therefore make this either the day or the night before you plan to bake the bread.

I prefer to mix and knead yeasted dough by hand so if your preference differs, then use an electric mixer with a dough hook. If you want to learn or refresh manual kneading skills, this video has the basics. My preferred method is the same I used when kneading clay back in the distant past when I was a potter. So if you know that nifty spiral manual technique, it can be transferred to dough. Measure/weigh flour into a large mixing bowl. Make two wells, one for yeast, warm water, and sugar, the other for salt and oil. Mix with a wooden spoon for a minute or two.

Whisk the egg yolks.

Put the maple syrup, yolks, and pâte fermentée into the mixing bowl.

Stir with a wooden spoon until the dough pulls together.  Empty contents onto a floured work surface (I used a silicon mat). Knead until mostly smooth.

Flatten out the dough and spread the raisins onto it. Fold dough over and finish kneading.

Let rise in a warm spot, covered with a damp, wrung-out dish cloth, plate, or plastic wrap. Because of my using stale yeast, it took two hours, but it should be closer to one hour.

Flatten out the dough into a rough oblong and start rolling the farther side towards you, pressing down on the juncture between the roll being made and the remaining flat surface of the dough. The aim is to create surface tension which aid in the bread rising well in the oven. Pinch/seal both ends and seam.

Choose a work surface that will accommodate rolling the dough into a rope approximately 90 cm (3 feet) long. Try to get away without flouring the surface as particles of flour drags on the coil flattening it out. If flour is needed to prevent sticking, sprinkle it as sparsely as possible. Place the part of both hands just under the base of fingers, that is, the top of your palm on the centre of the rope, and with a back and forth rolling motion thin and lengthen the dough to the ends as you move each hand farther and farther away from each other. Repeat until you get the desired length.

Using parchment paper, form a turban by curling one end and wrapping the other around that centre curl. Wash with beaten egg, cover with plastic or a damp dish towel, and set in a warm place till doubled. Preheat oven to 180 degrees C/350 degrees F.

Uncover and coat with beaten egg again. Bake in an oven for around 30 to 40 minutes until the bottom sounds hollow when tapped and a thin knife inserted between the strands come out dry.

I will bake challah again soon with newly bought yeast so as to try to get a lighter crumb. But as it stands, the taste is the best I have ever experienced because the pâte fermentée having a prolonged rising allowed for a minimum of yeast. Less yeast, more flavour.

À la prochaine!

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My book review of Hot Bread Kitchen Cookbook

The Bialy That Wanted To Be A Topknot Roll

Most of us wish at one time or another to be somebody else. Who would have thought that a bialy, normally known for its adorable, deliciously filled pocket, would attempt such delirious heights of the imagination by trying to pass itself off as a topknot roll.

Though it didn't fool me, it still gets A+ for effort

I, armed with a spoon, gently but firmly put an end to this ardent masquerade by levelling their exuberant expansion while whispering, you are softly chewy but also airy, blessed throughout your floury sublimity with the kiss of kosher salt, anointed with poppy seed, onion, olive oil, and bread crumbs, and possessing the thinnest, crackly crust of all crusts, I say, strut your stuff and let the world know you are a bialy, the best one this native New Yorker ever tasted.

My, what big pockets you have. Better to hold delicious filling, my dear

Dough
makes twelve 13 cm/5 inch bialys
taken from Hot Bread Kitchen Cookbook

• Water, lukewarm, 320 g (1 1/3 cups)
• Bread flour, (I use French type 65), 465 g/3.5 cups, plus more for kneading/shaping
• Pâte fermentée, 150 g (1/2 cup plus 2 T, deflating it first), cut into walnut size pieces (see below for ingredients and instructions)
• Yeast, active dry, 3/4
• Salt, kosher, 1 T*
• Cornmeal for the parchment paper to prevent sticking

Filling

• Olive oil, extra-virgin, 3 T
• Onions, yellow, medium, finely diced
• Bread crumbs, dried, fine, 8 T
• Poppy seeds, 1.5 T
• Salt, kosher, 1/2 tsp

I prefer to make bread by hand (how to knead vid), but if you like using a machine, just substitute that for manual labour. The night before, make the pâte fermentée:  put 8 T plus 1 tsp of lukewarm water and 2/3 tsp of active dry yeast in a bowl.  Add 180 g (1 1/3 cups + 1 T) of bread flour. Mix with a wooden spoon for several minutes to get a shaggy dough. Cover the bowl and let stand for 30 minutes. Refrigerate it at least overnight. When ready to start making bialys, put the water and flour in a bowl and mix with a wooden spoon for about five minutes. Let rest for 20 minutes. Add the pâte fermentée, yeast, and salt. Mix with a wooden spoon until the dry ingredients are completely combined. Turn out the dough onto a steady, floured surface like a glass/wooden board/silicone mat/smooth counter top (tuck a teacloth under the board to keep it from sliding around). Knead until smooth which took me about ten minutes. Add flour to keep your hands and dough from sticking. Scrape off any dried bits from the board and wash your hands of any dried dough as you knead. Getting it smooth is the goal here. To ensure that enough elasticity (development of gluten) has developed, do the windowpane test by breaking off a piece the size of a golf ball. Flour it if sticky. Using your hands, stretch it on all sides. Hold the thinned patch up to the light; it needs to show some transparency without tearing, like a windowpane. If not, knead some more. If so, then it is ready to be risen.

Dust a bowl lightly with flour. Place the dough in the bowl and cover.

I used a large ziplock plastic bag, but a moistened teacloth or a plate would work also

Let stand at room temperature until doubled in volume, about 1 hour and 30 minutes.

Meanwhile make the filling. Finely mince the onions and saute in the olive oil over medium-low heat for about 20 minutes or until moderately browned. Stir occasionally. Put them in a bowl. Add bread crumbs, poppy seeds, and salt. Cool.

Put the dough on a lightly floured surface. Divide it into 12 mostly equal pieces. To form into buns with excellent surface tension so as to effect a good oven rise, flatten the pieces into rough rectangles. Bring each of the four corners to the centre, pinching them.

Then bring the remaining four corners to the centre, pinching them also.

Place them with the pinched side down. Let rest for five minutes. Flatten out each ball with the heel of your hand to get 10 cm/4 inches diameter discs. Line the backs of rimmed baking sheets or in my case lay out two sheets of parchment to be later slid onto baking sheets preheating in the oven via a glass cutting board. Sprinkle cornmeal on the paper. Transfer the rolls. Loosely cover (I used moist, wrung-out dish towels). Let rise until the rolls are very soft and hold an indentation when touched lightly, about 1 hour to 1.5 hours. While the bialys are rising, preheat the oven to 260 degrees C/500 degrees F, a very hot oven indeed so be careful when handling the trays. If you have a baking stone, or in my case, baking sheets, make sure that it (them) is (are) in the oven. Uncover the bialys, and with the pads of your index and middle fingers, make a fairly wide and deep depression in each roll. 

Per Deb Perelman from Smitten Kitchen, insufficiently risen dough is the reason why I got the topknot response even though I did check its state by lightly indenting the dough with a finger. Since the indentation held then the dough should have been ready. She suggests to be on the safe side a hole can be made in the crater before placing the filling. You could also do a test bake for just one bialy since they bake quickly. Put about 2 T of filling in each crater, spreading it out to cover the depression. (Any surplus filling along with Parmesan can be mixed into pasta.) Pull out an oven shelf and hold the parchment paper with the bialys placed on a glass board or on the back of a rimmed sheet pan directly over the heated baking pan/stone. Gradually slide off the parchment paper along with the bialys by pulling the emptying board/sheet closer and closer to you while giving it a few shakes. Bake until golden brown, about 12 to 15 minutes. Transfer to a wire rack for a few minutes, sans the paper.

I love, love, love these. In fact, my love is so encompassing, my constant desire for Kaiser rolls (when living and working in  Manhattan decades ago, my go-to, take-out breakfast was a buttered Kaiser carefully wrapped in butcher paper and accompanied with a coffee in an Anthora cup) is gone. Though if a later edition of Hot Bread Kitchen Cookbook has a recipe for the real McCoy, that is, a crust so thin, it shatters, with insides sufficiently fluffy it just has to be buttered to have substance, and encrusted with poppy seeds, I would make them. I just would have to.

If you want to savour a bialy in all its wonderful crustiness, they are best served after a few minutes of cooling.

That glorious crumb, that superb crust, that tremendous flavour!

Hot Bread Kitchen cookbook advises keeping leftovers in a sealed plastic bag at room temperature for two days which I did. They lost that fantastic crust, but they were still so good, nicely chewy all-over their scrumptious selves. They also freeze well.

À la prochaine!

* Kosher salt is not in itself kosher, but instead, is what is used to make meat kosher by leaching (koshering) out blood. Any coarse salt (excluding fleur de sel whose taste punch would be lost in baking) would substitute.

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My book review for Hot Bread Kitchen Cookbook