This week’s Bread Baker’s Apprentice Challenge is Peter Reinhart’s recipe for Challah Bread (starting on page 129-132). This bread was great to make on a lazy day. No starter was needed for this particular recipe and rather than making a traditional braided challah, I formed mine in small knots to use for sandwiches (which I made for a picnic a few days ago.) My friends enjoyed these just as much as I did, especially for the soft texture and rich flavor!
To make the challah, the dough involved flour, sugar, salt, yeast, oil, water and lots of eggs – both whole eggs and egg yolks. Once combined together, I kneaded the dough in my stand mixer to create a soft dough.
This dough is placed in an oiled bowl to ferment for an hour at room temperature.
It ends up doubling in size a bit as seen here:
However, the dough isn’t ready yet, as it need to be kneaded once again to release the gases that have formed. After this second kneading, it’s placed in an oiled bowl again to ferment for yet another hour.
This second ferment allows the dough to double in size again!
At this point, you can take the dough and form it into a traditional Challah braid (by dividing the dough into thirds, creating long strands of dough and braiding) but because I wanted to make sandwiches, I opted to make individual rolls. I really like the braided look of traditional challah so I rolled several pieces of the dough into a boule (to allow the gluten to rest a bit before working it into a final shape)…
And after the dough rested, I made each boule into a long strand that I tied into a knot. I brushed my Challah knots with a bit of egg wash and proofed them at room temperature for about an hour.
One last glaze of egg wash and they were ready for the oven where they baked for 20 minutes at 350 degrees.
The end result were these golden Challah rolls, perfect for sandwiches!
They look so good — perfectly browned! My favorite lunch is chicken salad on a challah roll. Perfection in sandwich form!
These look amazing. There is nothing better than fresh baked bread!
Awesome. They look so very tasty.
Great baking along with you,
Susie
They look gorgeous! Challah is something I love, but have never made at home.
WOW! What a great idea. I'm definitely going to do this the next time I make challah. I know several Challengers made buns with their brioche, but I like the idea of the challah dough buns much better.
Great job!
Oooo – I would definitely want a sandwich made with these delicious rolls!
its been a while im not baking bread. thanks for sharing this :-)your bread looks fantastic!!
Your challah knots were adorable. Loved the step by step photos.
Wow those came out PERFECT!!
I nominated you for a blog award in my blog!
Nice! Love how the knots echo the braiding of the loaf.
Great rolls! Maybe next time I'll be brave enough to try that – I just braided mine, because I had never done that before either.
Great job Joelen! I like to buy challah to make french toast with. If it's fresh enough, I'll also eat it on it's own too.
These are beautiful!
Those look great! I love challah.