Wednesday, March 28, 2007

Challah Bread, lessons learned


I made 2 loaves for a dinner this past Monday, and rushed through the recipe. The good news is that you can rush challah bread and still come out with good loaves. The bad news is that the loaves were so big, they were still doughy in the middle. Luckily the ends were done enough that we had plenty to eat, but now I own a probe thermometer so I can test future loaves (I believe that 190-200 degrees is the target temp for most bread, but I'll have to double check).

Recipe used was the basic challah recipe, but I made a triple batch to use in my two largest loaf pans (5"x10"x3"), and I could have just used a double batch. I baked it for 40 minutes, I'm guessing another 5-10 was needed. I can't remember just how much dough went into the pans, but that is something else I'll be blogging about. The pans are listed as "1 1/2 lb loaf pans", but I know that 1.5 lbs of dough would fit the smaller pans best.

Sorry about the large gap in the blog, a combination of life getting in the way and bread burnout made me reevaluate how I do the blog. I know that I easily do 100 loaves in a year, but trying to pace it out for the blog is a bit much. So instead I'm going to record what I do and just not worry about repeats or doing 2 a week. So welcome to the easier, more enjoyable blog.