Challah Bread

A post about my today's experiments in baking. Last Black Friday I bought a new standing mixer - a sturdy (semi-)professional one, that can really mix dough. My previous mixer had the gadgets and pretenses of a dough mixer, but it could only beat eggs and mix runnier dough like cake batter. The new one is much more powerful and has proven (to me) that the secret of nice well baked bread is not in the triple sifting of the flour and hand kneading of the dough, but in having a good mixer or bread baking machine. Nowadays I simply and even arrogantly empty the ingredients into the bowl (without  sifting the flour, what a blasphemy!), turn on the mixer 'et voilà - in 6-8 minutes I have the dough ready for rising. Then I take the bowl and just put it in the oven at 30C for an hour - an hour and a half to rise - almost no physical work and engagement on my part apart from opening packets and measuring ingredients. And the results are so much better. So - yey for labour saving appliances :)

So - today I made Challah. I followed this recipe and instructions - an excellent step-by-step challah tutorial that could be followed even by a beginner in baking.

I especially enjoyed the mantra for the braiding - over two, under one, over two. Thus worded, it makes the 6-stranded braid so easy to execute and easy to remember for next time when I'm making  braided bread.

Challah is very similar to Bulgarian Easter bread - kozunak. The dough is enriched with eggs and sugar (I also replaced some of the water with 1/2 cup of milk). However, it is not as sweet as kozunak and can be eaten with cheese or meat too. The new thing for me, apart from the braiding, was the egg wash - it is done with the egg white and not with the yolk, as I usually do. Surprisingly, this egg wash gives the baked bread darker and richer caramel color. i sprinkled mine with sesame seeds too.

I didn't "plump" my bread quite evenly and it has a somewhat irregular shape,

but look at those threads - this challah came out so airy and light textured!

Blackberry Pie

I made this pie on Monday with blackberries we gathered along the track on Plana Mountain. This is the first time I'm making such dough and I know the pie doesn't look very professionally made, but it was quite delicious :)

Ingredients for the dough:

• 2 1/2 cups of flour
• 125 g cold butter
• 1 tsp sugar
• 1 pinch of salt
• 8 tbsp of cold water

Mix all of the ingredients for the dough and knead until the dough is homogeneous. Divide into two balls. Spread the first ball into a 1/2 cm thick sheet, place it in the baking tin and leave it in the fridge to cool.

For the blackberry filling:

• 200 g blackberries
• 2 tbsp flour
• 4 tbsp sugar
• 1 tbsp softened butter

Place the blackberry filling in the first sheet, spread the second ball of pastry and cover the filling. Make a few openings in the upper sheet. Glaze with egg and milk. Bake in a preheated oven at 200C.

Sweet Round Bread

This is the slightly sweet round bread I baked last night. I'm putting down the recipe because I'm very bad at keeping notes and sometimes links to internet sources tend to be unreliable. On several occasions these days I tried to follow links I've saved only to find that the authors have removed the contents I've been looking for. The dough is based on this recipe here.

 Ingredients:

• 10 g fresh yeast
• 1/4 cup of sugar
• 1/4 cup of oil
• 1/2 cup of warm water
• 1/2 cup of milk
• 1/2 teaspoon of salt
• 1 egg + 1 egg white (1 yolk + tsp milk for the glazing)
• 4 1/2 cups of flour

Mix the milk and the warm water. In a small  bowl mix the yeast with 4-5 tablespoons of the diluted milk, 1 teaspoon of sugar and 1 teaspoon of flour. Leave the starter to rise for 20 min. Meanwhile in a big bowl sift the flour, add the eggs, the sugar, oil, salt and milk + water. Add the starter. Knead the dough.

Leave it for an hour to double its volume. I put it in the oven at 50C. Knead the dough again. This time I used a different method for kneading - picking the ball of the dough and throwing it to the table for 100 times (I counted :))). Cut it into three equal balls and spread the balls flat. Place the flat circles on top of each other and cut into eight pieces some 2-3 cm from the center of the circle. Cut each piece into three and braid. Leave for about 30-40 min to rise again. Thus there are three risings of the dough which makes it very fine and thready.

Glaze, sprinkle with sesame seeds and place in a preheated oven at 180 C. Bake until the crust turns golden brown. (Do as I say and not as I do :)) - I got distracted and overbaked mine a bit.)

This sweet bread is perfect with honey, but the boys tried it with white cheese and claim that it's as equally delicious.