A new developing trend in my life is to bake some kind of bread every week. I have the ingredients, an oven, and an over-sized bowl… so why not? After opera on Friday night I began the no-knead bread process but made the fatal error of letting the 12-18 hour rising period take place in my oven. Before you say anything, no, I didn’t turn and leave my oven on overnight. But when its door is closed, the oven is always at at least 80 or 90 degrees–maybe more? So the dough just became a sloppy mess the next day.
To meet my quota I set out to make another challah: this time, the apple honey challah from Baking and Books.
Two words: SO GOOD. I halved the recipe because I didn’t have enough milk and grated up some nearly overripe apples (and squeezed out the juice for later consumption) instead of using dried ones. The extra moisture led to needing more flour; I probably ended up using maybe a half cup to a cup more (?) than what the recipe called for.
Extra note: The tutorial for weaving a round challah linked in the recipe is a really good one, especially for those of us who have trouble dividing things into thirds.
Oh, and here’s what the inside looks like:
The crumb is fairly dense but very, very soft. This thing smelled absolutely delicious all night and still has a good cinnamon aroma to it the next morning. The “grain” (is this the right word?) follows the contours of the braiding more so than my other (somewhat bloated) challah; not sure of this is because of density differences or because I only let this one rise 20 minutes (second rising; first was still two hours) before throwing it in the oven. I think I also prefer the egg + olive oil glaze over a plain egg one… crackly is good, in my book.
Basically, I am very much in love with this loaf of bread right now. And it’s already half gone :D
Next up in the bread queue, in no particular order: this focaccia, something with some combination of herbs, meat, and cheese in it, no-knead bread (I MUST get this right), bagels, beer bread (to practice for the summer! I have one bottle of Asahi. Any recipe recommendations?), sourdough (this seems difficult), and maybe some biscuits and scones.
April 21, 2008 at 4:09 pm
I forgot to tell you, following in our tradition, when I made mini pies on my birthday at Diana’s apartment we accidentally left the oven on. But it was okay because then we made another pie anyway. But still. TRADITION.
…we should probably end this tradition.
April 21, 2008 at 9:43 pm
I… still forget. (Probably a bad thing since I’m baking so much?) Let’s see what happens the next time we bake together. In the mean time I will work on getting renters’ insurance.
April 22, 2008 at 10:26 am
Ooh, looks amazing! Wow, you’ve been a machine in the kitchen lately!
April 22, 2008 at 5:33 pm
Crista, you make me want to live off-campus just so that I can make my own food. It all looks so delicious…
April 24, 2008 at 12:56 pm
I was just wondering, so Anran and I are planning on planting some sage, thyme, and rosemary so that we can have fresh herbs to cook with, would you want some if we do it? I know you’re bigger on baking than cooking but still though it’d be worth offering.
April 24, 2008 at 1:01 pm
Oh also I’ve made biscuits from scratch before and it’s so worth it. Lets make biscuits sometime! Whee.
April 24, 2008 at 3:01 pm
Julie – Thanks! The amount of baking you see here is proportional to the number of papers, exams, and performances I have any given week. Stress relief!
Michelle – If you plan ahead now, you can go into a complete cooking frenzy when you do move off campus! This is what I did and you’re seeing the results, haha.
Emily – Yeah! That would be awesome, thanks. Herbs (especially with cheese) help make breads delicious, after all :D Also yes for biscuits! I should REALLY get a rolling pin.