Challah!

Not wanting my cooking projects to stagnate, I've been steadily expanding beyond my typical cooking repertoire. This has led to exploration of new cuisines, trying new cooking methods, and creating traditional and fusion recipes. Flour based recipes such as breads, pastas and dumplings have been especially alluring. I did get my hands on a pizza stone and hope to soon experiment with making pizza on the grill. Only a few weeks past, I enjoyed a helpful semolina pasta making lesson from my friend Stephen. He also loves home cooking and taught me some useful tips for using a traditional Italian pasta machine. The results were delicious!  I also have designs on taking a 1:1 lesson on making Indian paratha and naan breads.

Our dear friend Jane generously invited my friend Toni and I to join her today for a challah baking lesson. She has a great deal of experience teaching close friends and other members of her synagogue how to bake challah. For special occasions, she may host 8-10 women at her home and they will all bake up to 30 loaves of challah together.

Baking of challah is a strong tradition for Jewish women, steeped in a longtime custom of baking challah bread on early Friday evenings before Shabbat. There are three Hebrew prayers said on Shabbat and one of them is the Ha-Motzi, a blessing of the bread before the meal.  The braiding of the bread represents the sacred and profane coming together. The sacred is the restful part of our lives, while the profane represents our work week and the tough things we experience throughout the week.

Jane shared with us that she has been making challah for countless years and considers challah baking her form of meditation. Challah baking is her way of shrugging off the stress from the week. She learned to make challah from her mother, who was a home economics teacher and excellent baker and home cook.

Jane was a patient teacher and made sure we knew that "There are stupid questions, but no stupid challah questions." She shared that there is no such thing as an ugly challah-they are all unique and beautiful. She appreciates variety in her challah making, experimenting with different flours, dried fruits and seed toppings. She occasionally makes junk food challah, which includes M&M's. I greatly appreciated the variations in making challah as a cook keen on making cooking and baking exploratory and fun.

We learned how to make 3 braided, 4 braided and 6 braided bread. Jane shared a great number of helpful tips along the way, such as adding oil to your bowl to keep your rising bread from sticking, how much to knead your bread (gratefully, as much as you want) and suggestions for oils, flours and yeast brands for challah.

Toni preparing to make braids

Now was time to bake Jane's challah. While waiting for the challah to bake, we enjoyed a lovely lunch prepared by Jane's wife Joan. We had a terrific salad using fresh vegetables from Joan's garden and from their CSA share from Next Barn over in Hadley, MA. A little balsamic, olive oil, salt, seeds and cheese were added. This was a perfect light summertime lunch. Thank you, Joan!

We were then sent off with our little challah care packages. At home, we tested our braiding skills. I could only hope for the best. I have to say that nothing went too awry, and the bread was tasty and appreciated by the family. I am looking forward to continuing to improve on making challah. I appreciate that the recipe for this bread involves a short ingredient list using items you typically always have in the kitchen. So, you can also whip this up at anytime when you have just a little extra time for bread baking.

Now on to the next new bread project!