Knead For Speed

By far, Challah is my favorite bread to bake. Challah is an egg-enriched ceremonial braided bread celebrated in Jewish tradition due to its religious significance, often serving as a centerpiece at special occasions such as on Shabbat and other holidays. Due to its ceremonial nature, Challah is braided and creatively shaped to visually enhance its appearance. Additionally, Challah is often filled with dried fruits and seeds and further topped with various seeds and nuts. As far as I know, Challah is always eggwash glazed too.

Interestingly enough, Challah is a bread and not a pastry. It’s unique from most other enriched breads in the fact that it does not contain butter or any dairy in order to keep it pareve. It is therefore not considered brioche or a la viennoiserie-style pastry, but more of an enriched regular bread.

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Ingredients

The basic Challah is _{White Bread}Flour, Water, Salt, Yeast + _{Egg-Enrichment}Egg, Sugar, and Oil. The typical Challah has a 40-50% hydration. This recipe relies on 45% hydration.

Ingredient	Portion	Pan Loaf	Full Size
Flour	100%	287g	670g
Hydration	45%
Water	31%	89g	214g
Egg	15%	43g	103g
Honey	15%	43g	103g
Oil	10%	28g	69g
Salt	2%	5.8g	13.9g
Yeast	1%	2.9g	6.9g
	174%	~500g	~1200g

Ingredients Discussion

Flour	While you can really use any all-purpose flour to make a decent Challah. Bread flour will produce superior  I have experimented enough with different types of flour to know well enough that the only thing that works better than everything else is King Arthur Bread Flour with 12.7% protein. Nothing else seems to produce as good of a bread.
Honey	Traditionally, Challah utilizes honey instead of sugar for its unique flavor that enhances the bread.
Oil	I recommand using extra virgin olive oil. The intense earthy flavor of the oil really elevates the richness of the bread.
Yeast	Since the yeast is added to water, you can use instant yeast or active dry yeast. There is no difference in our case.

Ingredients Substitutions

Flour

A decent Challah can be made with pretty much any all-purpose flour. I found that King Arthur’s higher gluten all-purpose flour works very well. However, if you want to push things farther, Bread flour will produce superior results. I have experimented enough with different types of flour to know well enough that the only thing that works better than everything else is King Arthur Bread Flour with 12.7% protein. Nothing else seems to produce as good of a bread. (Note that commercial bakeries with access to King Arthur Sir Lancelot flour is even better.)

Honey / Sugar

If you prefer to use sugar instead of Honey, adjust recipe for the 18% hydration found in honey. Ingredient Portion Pan Loaf Full Size Flour 100% 283g 678g Hydration 45%     Water 34% 96g 231g Egg 15% 42g 102g Sugar 15% 42g 102g Oil 10% 28g 68g Salt 2% 5.6g 13.6g Yeast 1% 2.8g 6.8g   177% 500g 1200g It’s also possible to substitute white sugar for brown sugar for its molasses flavor. Utilize a 1-to-1 substitution. In my experiments, Brown sugar’s hydration is so little, it does not seem to really impact the dough much, but you may reduce the water content by a few grams to compensate for it.

Oil	If you prefer to utilize neutral oil instead of olive oil, you may do so as a direct 1-to-1 substitute.

Hydration Discussion

As with everything in baking, what works best for one person might not for another. The typical Challah as an hydration rate of somewhere around 40-50%. Anything much higher than 50% will produce dough that will get progressively harder to properly braid. Additionally, it will won’t retain its braid definitions as well while proofing. Feel free to play around with the percentages and see what works best for you.

Directions

1. Make Sponge:
   1. In a bowl, mix all the yeast and water (around 75°F / 24°C). [Yeast, Water]
   2. Mix in 30% of the flour (In our case, 278 x 0.30 = 83g). [Flour]
   3. Let the sponge ferment at room temperature (~ 72°F / 22°C)
   4. Fermentation may last as much as 2 hours.
   5. When sponge triples/quadruples in size with a domed foam, it’s ready.
2. Make Bulk Dough:
   1. Mix Wet Ingredients: In a separate bowl, mix in and whisk together the oil, sugar, and eggs. [Oil, Sugar, Eggs]
   2. Add Sponge: Mix the sponge into the bowl.
   3. Add Dry Ingredients: Mix in the flour and salt. [Flour, Salt]
   4. Mix the ingredients well. Scrape bowl to fully incorporate everything.
   5. Knead the dough.
   6. Final dough should be consistent, smooth, elastic, but still tacky.
   7. Perform windowpane test, if fails, go to step 5.
   8. Bulk ferment dough until roughly double in volume.
3. Make Loaf Dough:
   1. Shape and braid loaf dough.
   2. Proof: loaf dough.
   3. Proofing may last 1:30-2:00 hours
4. Bake
   1. Setup center rack in oven; heat to 350°F / 175°C
   2. Glaze loaf dough.
   3. Bake: in middle rack for 35-40 minutes.
   4. Challah is ready when inside reaches 180–190°F and crust is shiny/polished.
5. Cool
   1. remove from oven and cool completely on cooling rack. Wait until fully cooled before slicing/tearing Challah.

Directions Discussion

1. Challah is commonly made with a sponge comprising 100% of the yeast, 100% of the water, and 30% of the flour.

Illustration

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Glazing

….. egg, egg+honey

Shaping

Braiding

Shapes

Fillings

sautéed onions or chopped olives –

 

 

800g flour, 14g yeast, 320g water, 12g salt, 100g egg, 80g sugar, 60g oil

 

100%, 1.75% yeast, 40% water, 1.5% salt, 12.5% egg, 10% sugar, 7.5% oil

Timing-Flavor Optimizations

There is always a trade-off between optimizing for flavor and optimizing for time. Technically, you can make a pretty good Challah in under 3 hours from start to finish. Longer process allows for the dough to develop richer flavors. Additionally, it’s also possible to optimize baking Challah to fit your schedule as opposed to forcing you to remain at or near the kitchen. 

• Eliminate Sponge Stage – The Sponge adds additional flavor to the Challah and improves the texture and its shelf life. However, because Challah already contains honey/sugar and fat (oil), its benefits are already more limited. In my experience and experiments, one can achieve very good results by skipping the sponge entirely if you’d want to cut down on perp time. To do this, simply skip to the ‘Make Bulk Dough’ stage and just combine the yeast and water along with all the other wet ingredients. This will save you around 1-2 hours.
• Add a Tangzhong Stage – You can introduce another stage right after the Sponge stage to make use of the tangzhong technique. Since Challah has relatively low hydration (around 50%), it’s possible to make use of Tangzhong to introduce more hydration without the need for more flour in order to achieve similar tenderness. This will cost you around 10 additional minutes.
• Speedup kneading With Mixer – Using a stand mixer with a dough hook, you can reduce hand-kneading time from 15-20 minutes to around 7. Results should be identical.
• Add 2-Day Split – After shaping the Challah, you can refrigerate the dough overnight. The next day, remove the dough from fridge and proof for 45-90 minutes before egg-wash/topping, and baking. This kind of split will allow you to prepare the dough the night before and bake it the next day.