Homemade “No Corn Syrup!” Kosher Marshmallows (without all the patchke)

I’ve always loved the way Shoshana at Couldn’t be Parve turns out gorgeous gourmet marshmallows in flavours like Blood Orange, Rose and Raspberry Lemonade.  She makes it look easy, and the truth is, I’ve followed her recipes and they’re not difficult.

But as with most marshmallow recipes, they involve hauling out a thermometer (and I don’t have a real candy thermometer, just a digital one that I dunk into things as needed). 

Most marshmallow recipes also call for corn syrup, though Shoshana does offer a liquid invert sugar “marshmallow syrup” recipe that I’ve used several times.  It works, but it involves extra steps that add to the “patchke” of making marshmallows from scratch.

When we were invited to gluten-free friends for lunch, I saw it as a great opportunity to make marshmallows again.  But I REALLY wasn’t looking forward to monitoring the temperature or doing the invert-sugar step.  Out of curiosity, I started googling thermometer-free recipes, and found this one, which was also – as a bonus – corn-syrup free as well.

I missed photographing the early steps of prepping this, but it’s very straightforward.

Before you start, you will need:

• REAL Gelatin, not unflavoured kosher jelly-style dessert pudding mix or any other thing that makes a jelly-type pudding.
• A stand mixer.  Any marshmallow recipe needs about 10-15 minutes of mixing, but with a decent stand mixer, you can just start it up, set a timer, and walk away while it works.

I used the last package of our Kolatin gelatin from Canada.  It expired about a year ago, so I tested it first by mixing it with a little water, and it set up just fine.  If it hadn’t, there is gelatin available in stores here in Israel as well.

Here is the gelatin, mixed with water.

(Don’t ask me, by the way, why gelatin is pareve.  It comes from animals… but apparently changes sufficiently that it is no longer considered an animal product?  If you can explain this, let me know in the comments!)

Recipe: Old cake, new cake… on Shavuos, we have two cakes!

And no, they’re not both cheesecakes… although one is; a special all-Israeli cheesecake for which you can find the recipe a bit further down.  And okay, both are dairy-based; sorry to anyone who can’t have dairy at this very milky time of year…

(In fact, since I started to write this, my husband decided to make a classic North American lemony cheesecake, deapite my predictions of doom that it wouldn’t work with Israeli cheese… so we may end up with three cakes.)

With all of my dooming and glooming about baking in Israel, I was happy to receive a recipe from my ulpan teacher on Sunday night which she guaranteed would work with Israeli ingredients – given that she’s never baked it anywhere else.  I figure as an old dog making aliyah, it’s time for a new trick… with cheesecake.

Except, except, except… her cheesecake doesn’t have a crust.  Heresy!  I couldn’t bake a crustless cheesecake.  Honestly, I was about to pour it into the pan (#26, according to her instructions, which took some measuring, because I’d never heard of this size before), when I broke down and decided I simply couldn’t do it.

Hence, a last-minute, Lotus biscuit crust.  If you have never had Lotus / Biscoff / Speculoos biscuits before, you must.  I was already dreaming of them before we got here, having read on several baking sites that they are simply delicious.  Indeed, I found a copycat recipe a number of years ago and tried to recreate them, but really, they were nothing like the real thing. 

(Trust me, this is a cookie people love so much that they made it into a spread.  So if you’re eating a biscuit that isn’t a Lotus, you can “convert” it with a dab of spread!)

Anyway, we had a bunch here, but the catch is that they’re individually wrapped… which meant individually unwrapping about four dozen of the things to make a crust in my #26 pan.

Crumble, crumble, crumble…

…Crust!

 

As you can see in the picture above, the cake was already completely mixed.  Like I said, I was about to pour it into the naked tinfoil pan, but simply couldn’t do it.  So the cheese part waited while the crust baked.

… Baked crust!

At last… time to pour the cheesecake stuff in.  Waah!  Even without a crust, this would barely have fit in the pan.  Maybe I did something wrong…?  But I sampled a bit to make sure it was yummy before slipping it into the oven, so I think it’s okay.

 

Here’s the recipe. 

Lucky for you, I have transcribed it below so you can try it out yourself without needing to squint through my Hebrew handwriting.

But what about the second cake? 

It wouldn’t be Shavuos without an old cake, a familiar family friend.  And the most familiar of all is my Grama’s Neapolitan Cake.  Which sounds all hoity-toity, unless you think of it (as I do) as “pudding-cookie cake.”  Really – it’s just pudding and cookies; it really is that simple.

STEP 1:  Take four HUGE cookies:

STEP 2:  Slop some pudding onto them… and sprinkle with toasty almonds so it doesn’t look like so much something a child made:

Wah-la!

For the full Grama’s Neapolitan Cake recipe, click here.

And for the “new” cheesecake recipe from my ulpan teacher Galya… well, read on.

ALL-ISRAELI CHEESY CHEESECAKE FROM MY ULPAN TEACHER GALYA

(if you try to make this outside of Israel, your results may vary)

Cheesecake Ingredients:

• 750g gevina levana / white cheese (I used 2 tubs, 1 500g and 1 250g)
• 6 large eggs, separated
• 200ml (1 regular tub) 15% shamenet chamutza / sour shamenet = roughly like sour cream
• 1 1/2 cups white sugar, divided
• 4 tbsp korenflor / cornflour = corn starch (not corn meal!)
• 3 tbsp instant vanilla pudding mix (the Hebrew term for this: “eenstant pooooodeeeeeng vaneeeel”)
• 1 packet vanilla sugar OR real vanilla extract (that’s what I used)

How to make it:

1. Preheat oven to 160 degrees.
2. Mix well the egg yolks, shamenet, corn flour, pudding mix, gevina levana, vanilla sugar / extract, half cup white sugar
3. Beat egg whites with one cup sugar until they form peaks
4. Gently but thoroughly combine egg whites with other ingredients (which you mixed in Step 2).
5. Place in a greased round #26 pan (= 26 cm)
6. Bake around one hour until golden-brown (I generally bake cheesecake a little less than it feels like you ought to so it doesn’t dry out and crack!)
7. For best results, leave in oven to cool at least 1 hour after baking.
8. Ice with “krem” if desired (see below).

(one HUGE cheesecake, as demonstrated by my husband)

“Krem” (frosting) ingredients:

• 1 small container of sweet whipping cream
• the rest of the vanilla instant pudding from the cheesecake
• 3/4 cup milk

How to make it:

1. Beat all “krem” ingredients together.
2. Spread on cheesecake when cool.

NOTE:  I haven’t made the “krem” yet and can’t vouch for its yumminess!

For more information about Shavuos, please check out:  Shavuos Adventures from Adventures in MamaLand.  The adventures you’ll find there include…

• The (simplified) story of Ruth and Naomi (Book of Ruth, read on Shavuos)
• Sample Shavuos menu
• Easy Shavuos kids’ craft
• Free printable Shavuos book for early readers
• Dvar Torah for a midweek Shavuos

Good Yom Tov / Chag Sameach / Happy Shavooooooo-ot from the holy land!

Giant Cinnamon Bun for Shabbos

It’s no secret that I’ve been searching years for the perfect pareve cinnamon bun.  When I saw this recipe, for a Giant Cinnamon Roll Cake, mentioned on a facebook group last week, it looked sort of perfect – simple, low-key and kind of pretty, to boot.

I didn’t use the dough recommended in the recipe – I just made my regular challah dough a bit sweeter than usual.

ROLL IT OUT. 

Roll it out into a “rectangle” (okay, not exact, but you can tug at the corners gently to make it prettier).

SPREAD YUMMINESS. 

The cinnamon spread was easy, and I was impressed that it didn’t have a ton of margarine in it.  I used butter-flavoured.  Use fresh cinnamon, if at all possible!

TIME TO STRIP.

Now, you’re supposed to cut the dough into nice, neat strips.  Theoretically, the recipe asks you to use a ruler and make sure they’re equal so your “cake” doesn’t look all lumpy and bumpy.  My philosophy is that it all tastes the same anyway (probably not true, exactly, because if you have lumps sticking up, they may burn, which then won’t taste the same at all… but anyway).  Here are how my strips turned out.  (I used my handy-dandy bench scraper to cut the strips sharply – I don’t know if you’d want to run a pizza cutter, as recommended, over any table surface you really liked!)

 

READY TO ROLL!

Start rolling!  From the inside, coil each strip to form the cake, adding the next strip when one runs out.  The recipe author says “I always crimp the ends together with my fingers to press them together as I’m coiling.”  That is why hers turns out looking so gorgeous.  Mine didn’t, but still.  Here’s what it looked like when I was done coiling.  It sure didn’t look like I had enough to fill the pan.

 

PROOF SOMEWHERE WARM.

I almost never proof in a warm place.  It just feels like cheating.  But in this case, I wanted monstrous growth, to fill up the pan, and I was also in a bit of a rush.  I had just turned off the oven, aired it a bit so it wasn’t scorching hot, then popped the “cinnamon roll” inside.  Tada!

 

BAKE IT UP.

Don’t ask me for how long.  I pulled it out just when I figured it was about to start burning on the parts that were sticking up.

GET FROSTED.

You’re supposed to let it cool for a while before drizzling with frosting,  I used icing sugar (confectioner’s sugar) mixed with coconut milk to make the frosting (coconut MILK, not coconut water, as my husband always helpfully suggests!).  At first, I made it too thin; you can see that the frosting looks watery on the “roll.”

 

After I thickened it up a bit with more icing sugar, the frosting was perfect.  Yes, it had a bit of a coconut taste, but nothing bad or offensive, and it certainly didn’t clash with the cinnamon of the roll.  If I wanted a more neutral flavour, I suppose I could have used either pareve whipping cream or a pareve milk, though my experience with pareve milks and frostings has been disappointing so far.

 

Mmm, mmm, mmm… Shabbos!

I hesitated to bite into this after Shabbos dinner.  I have been disappointed too many times by cinnamon buns that were overly dry, overly bready, or just missing the certain desserty je-ne-sais-quoi.  But I am happy to reveal that I was NOT disappointed!  Maybe because I was super-generous with the drizzle, but every bite of this was absolutely perfect, and I’m excited not only to recommend this giant cinnamon bun but to try it again sometime soon.

Now.  What about me?

I suppose if you’re a longtime reader seeing this, my first post in about seven months, you may wonder what I’ve been up to.

Life has been busy.  No, scratch that – life has been CRAZY.

In case you haven’t noticed, we moved to Israel over the summer and haven’t quite bounced back.  I don’t know if we’ll ever bounce back… given that there’s no “back” to bounce to.  I’m not homeschooling, I’m working full-time as a freelance writer, and have severed so many connections to our old lives that I’m left wondering, most days, what’s left. 

I am baking – back to my once-a-week challah routine, and have been for months.  The good news is that my sourdough starter made it across the ocean alive!  I used it for a while and perfected some nice sourdough challahs, but then it went smelly and got shelved until I had the proper care and attention to give to it.  And I never blogged about any of it.  Most weeks, there’s only time to bake the challahs… and no time to blog about them.

But I’m coming back.  I’m on my way back.

Until I get all the way here, please join me over at…

• My aliyah blog
• My kids’ books writing blog (which has its own facebook page here)
• Or join me on facebook.

Feel free to leave comments letting me know what you’d like to see when I do get back!!!  Or just to say, “hi, it’s nice to see you!”

Pot pie with Sweet Potato Dumplings / Biscuits

When you want a chicken pot pie but are a) you only have one frozen pie crust (or don’t want to fuss with a top crust), and can’t even think of a b), why not make this EASY sweet-potato-dumpling topped version instead? 

(if you are enthused by this idea, see also this post about putting cornbread on top of chili)

You don’t even have to use meat! 

Putting a quick bread on TOP of a moist, savoury dish (whether it’s meat or dairy or even vegan, as I have been known to do with roasted root vegetables and tofu) compensates for all the downsides of quick breads – namely that they tend to dry out quickly and be less full-bodied in flavour, while lacking the exquisite texture of true breads.  Baked on top of a yummy filling – whether you have a bottom crust or not – the quick bread (dumplings, cornbread, beer bread or any quick bread you like) stay moist, absorb flavour, and add texture and substance to round out a meal.

(Technicality:  FYI, “quick bread” is the term used to describe any non-yeasted bread, including soda-risen breads, fruit/veggie breads like banana or zucchini loaf, coffee cakes and the ilk)

The only catch with this recipe is advance planning:  you’ll need to bake the sweet potato ahead of time.  To get two cups of mush, you could use one very large sweepo or two mediumish ones.  Scrub them up, poke them repeatedly with a skewer (save the skewer!), stick them in the oven at any temperature (350-400) and poke them after an hour, then every half an hour until they’re soft all the way through.  Allow to cool, then peel and mash.  If you haven’t planned ahead, you can microwave the sweepo – scrub, poke, place on a plate with a paper towel and nuke it for 10 minutes, then check every 4 minutes until it’s done.

Here’s the recipe for the dumplings.  It’s really just a quick biscuit dough, but I like the fact that it contains so much sweet potato – yummy and better for you that way:

Sweet Potato Dumplings / Biscuits on a Pot Pie

(recipe makes enough to put half on a pot pie and bake half as 6-7 freeform biscuits on the side)

What you’ll need:

• 2 cups sweepoes, mashed (see above)
• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 2 tbsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp baking soda
• 2 tsp table salt (don’t use kosher salt for small quantities like this, but if you must, cut it in half)
• 1/4 to 1/2 cup vegetable oil (you could use half or all butter for a yummy dairy version if you wanted)

What to do:

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees.
2. Fill a homemade or frozen pie crust in any way you like – veggies, chicken, whatever you want inside, with any sauce or seasoning you enjoy. (*see below)
3. Combine flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt in a separate bowl.
4. Add oil to mashed sweet potatoes, then add dry ingredients and stir until mixed (don’t beat or overmix, but there shouldn’t be any white clumps left).
5. Drop dough in generous tablespoons onto your pot pie, using another tablespoon to help.  Cover most of the surface, leaving some openings.
6. Drop remaining dough by tablespoons onto a cookie sheet or baking pan lined with parchment.
7. Bake biscuits for 15 - 20 minutes, or until golden brown.
8. Bake pot pie an additional 15-20 minutes until golden brown and sizzling.

I wasn’t going to include the pot pie filling recipe, because it’s not really a recipe, but I thought it might be helpful to somebody.  Please accept this in the spirit of “take it and run with it and play with it” rather than as strict, literal instructions.  :-)

* Pot pie filling – Meat or Vegetarian:

Here’s what I used last night:

• Onion
• Frozen veggies (any:  I had tail ends of beans, peas, corn, broccoli, spinach, and a bag of mixed veggies)
• Cooked chicken or turkey (I had a frozen baggie of chicken saved from making soup over Pesach.  It was NOT a big baggie – you don’t need much.)
• If you prefer a vegetarian/vegan version, roast a bunch of root vegetables along with some cut-up (extra-firm) tofu and substitute those (you can add beans, too) where I mention chicken below; use pareve soup mix or storebought veggie broth instead of chicken soup.
• A few tbsp of flour
• Wine (white is probably best, but I had zinfandel) – splash or more, to your own preference.
• Chicken broth, leftover chicken soup, or water / soup mix.
• Salt, pepper to taste.

What I did:

Fried onion until translucent, then added frozen veggies.  Stirred until veggies had just thawed, then added chicken.  Stirred just until chicken started to thaw, sprinkled with flour and stirred for a while.  Added wine, stirred it a bit, added soup, and simmered gently until thickened.  Seasoned with salt & pepper to taste – and it was done!  This was maybe 10-15 minutes minutes, start to finish.

(sweet potato image © Petr Kratochvil, c/o Wikimedia)

Wish I’d taken pictures, but you’ll have to take my word for it that this looked and smelled amazing coming out of the oven…

Spontaneous Bagels!

These are actually based on this yummy mall-pretzel copycat recipe, which I’ve made a lot, but I made a couple of changes to turn them into bagels.  First, I doubled it… that’s not really a change.  I mixed it in the food processor, which was great.  I also subbed malt syrup for the brown sugar to make it more bagel-y, and added a tsp of salt per recipe, because there’s none in the original.

They had a nice long rise because I started them in the early afternoon before we went out to a 2-hour kids’ class.  I made the holes a bit differently from usual – started with 100g boules and, with a well-greased finger, poked a hole into them which I expanded over several iterations until there was more hole than bagel (I can’t stand cake-y bagels with skimpy holes!).

Nice big holes… ready to boil!

Added the last of the malt syrup (boo hoo) to the boiling water, along with a bit (2-4 tbsp?) of baking soda.  This is a terrible pot for boiling in, because it can only take 3-4 bagels at a time. (One – not shown here – got squashed as it went in, which immediately and permanently twisted it into a figure 8.).  Boiled about 1.5 minutes…

Now out on the pan for poppy seeds!  I could only fit 6 on a pan because they were quite large and puffed up a bit more from the boiling step:

  

Baked 12 minutes at 500… perfect!

 

They were a bit weirdly “moist” around the bottom, which I’ve never experienced before, but all in all, fresh, delicious, and not too involved.  I would like to investigate how the boiling time affects the final texture, though I’m not sure exactly what texture I’d be hoping for, ultimately.  I’ll know it when I taste it.  I do know these were a darn sight better than most of the “bagels” available here in Toronto (which are actually just bread-in-a-circle – blah).

Served with a simple bean soup that everybody raved over… ah, the simple things.

Do you have a go-to bagel recipe???  Or a bread that involves several steps… that are SO worth the extra work?

Pareve Sugar Cookies for (not exactly) a Year…

Searching for the perfect Pareve Sugar Cookie recipe a few weeks ago, I found a bunch of references online to a now-defunct blog post (if you click the link, you will probably get a message telling you just how defunct) explaining how you could create your own sugar cookie mix in bulk.

Intrigued, I tracked down an old cached copy of the post, with the recipe, and stashed it off-line for safekeeping.  And yes, it uses shortening, and if you don’t want to use shortening, then don’t.  Sometimes, you kind of have to.  I use Butter-flavoured Crisco now that it’s pareve again here.

Here’s the recipe – shamelessly reposted word-for-word as a service to you, my beloved readers:

Sugar Cookies for the YEAR!

Warning: This makes a LOT of sugar cookie mix.
We store it in freezer zip lock bags, pre-measured and ready-to-go at any time. (see below)
Ingredients:
12 cups all-purpose flour
6 cups sugar
2 Tablespoons baking powder
1 Tablespoon salt
4 cups shortening (I like to use the butter-flavored kind)
In a LARGE bowl, combine the first 4 ingredients. Cut in shortening until mixture resembles fine crumbs.

**This is your cookie base mix that you can freeze. I freeze 2 cups in Ziplock quart size freezer bags. On the bag, I write: “Add 1 egg and 1/2 teaspoon vanilla. Bake 375 for 8 minutes.” Really easy to just pull out of the freezer and a child can really make these easily on their own. I got 6 ziplock bags and 5 more batches that we made today.
Directions for sugar cookies:
You will need 2 cups of the cookie base mix, 1 egg, and 1/2 teaspoon vanilla. (If the dough is still a little dry, you can add a wee bit of water, but you want the dough to be a texture that can be rolled out.)
Combine the cookie base, egg and teaspoon vanilla extract. Using your hands, mix together to form a nice dough. Roll dough to 1/8 inch thick. Using cookie cutters, cut the dough and place on ungreased cookie sheet. Bake at 375° F for about 8 minutes or until a very light brown. Cool on wire rack. You can decorate with icing and sprinkles. Have fun! Makes about 2 dozen but depends on size of your cookie cutter shapes.
If you don’t have cookie cutters, you can get creative and use the edge of a drinking glass and make nice round sugar cookies.

Another Option is to use the dough to make Cherry - Almond Drops!
Combine 2 cups cookie base mix, 1 egg, and 1/2 teaspoon Almond extract. Add 1/2 cup chopped almonds and 1/4 cup finely chopped maraschino cherries. Drop from teaspoon onto greased cookie sheet. Bake at 375° F for 8 - 10 minutes or just till edges are lightly browned. Cool on rack. Makes about 2 dozen.

The only catch is that I decided to do it – for quickness’ and laziness’ sake – in my food processor.  But even in a big food processor, I could only do half a batch at a time, and even then, it was VERY crowded and would barely mix properly.  Anyway, a half-recipe made about 4 2-cup baggies for the freezer, plus one batch I made right away.  Not exactly enough for a YEAR, but perhaps for a few months if you don’t overdo things.

I made a batch of plain vanilla sugar cookies for Shabbos, cut out in loose magen david shapes and sprinkled with sugar, and they were quite well-received.  I bake them a bit longer than the directions suggest, because we like them crunchy, almost brown but not quite.

Tonight, I pulled out one of the frozen freezer baggies, threw it in back ye olde food processor and tossed in an egg and – instead of the vanilla – a teaspoon of Red Velvet Emulsion to attempt “red velvet cookies,” similar to ones I saw at WalMart the other day.  (yeah, yeah, not all my foodie ambitions are all that highbrow…)

A food processor is not strictly necessary to mix up the frozen baggies of “cookie mix,” but I was in a hurry and didn’t want to either a) wait for the mix to thaw slightly or b) get my hands dirty (okay, I know – it’s not dirt, it’s FOOD; that’s what I tell my kids, anyway).  For Shabbos, I just stirred it in a bowl, and that worked fine, too.

The Red Velvet colouring/emulsion came about after Shoshana at Couldn’t be Parve mentioned that she uses Lorann’s Buttery Sweet Dough Bakery Emulsion.  Naturally, I had to buy some, and I found a localish kitchen place that not only sold it but took paypal (I paid online, then picked up in person).  And while I was on their website, I had to pick up the Princess Cake/Cookie Emulsion AND… this bottle of Red Velvet emulsion:

It is a scary, dark blood-red colour – almost black – when it comes out, with a gel-like texture completely unlike any food colouring I’d ever known.  Also, it’s not just colouring – it has a distinctive reddish velvety cake-ish flavour which you might or might not like.

So there you have it… Red Velvet Cookies and your very own pareve freezer cookie mix.  What I’d love is an oil-based sugar cookie recipe, but I suspect there’s  no such thing.  At some point, you really need that solid fat as a base. 

If you wanted to be totally decadent, you could probably mix up this same mixture using butter as the fat… but my food processor is pareve, so I’d have to do that by hand.  And while I’m making dairy cookies by hand, I’d probably pull out the mixer and cream the butter with the sugar – the old-fashioned way.

So… what’s your go-to pareve cookie recipe???

Well-rounded challah?

I was so excited when I saw that Shoshana of Couldn’t be Parve (one of my favourite kosher food blogs!) had posted this Round Woven Challah Tutorial.  She used beautiful coloured dough – there’s even a video.
In previous years, when it comes to round challahs, I have done one of two things:  made a very long  EVEN braid (normally, I make the braids FAT in the middle, but that doesn’t work for round) and then just wrapped it in on itself.   Or… um… just made a big, fat snake, and wrapped it up like a snail.  Easy!  (Plus, that’s what my mother does, so it’s not only easy, it’s a TRADITION!) (click the link above & scroll down to see both models)
I’ve always thought of myself as a klutzy,  non-dextrous person, but the truth is that my regular 4-braids come so easily now that I am starting to think maybe I just needed practice all along.  (I have been partly emboldened along the way by various paper-folding things, like Curious George paper boats and these butterflies.)
So when I saw Shoshana’s tutorial, I thought - “why the heck not?!”  I mean, I won’t wreck her tute for you, but I will share a sneak preview (properly linked, with credit, borrowed for review purposes only) and tell you she makes it look TOTALLY simple.

So why the heck not, right?
Well, because I’m a klutz, that’s why.  And because I had already made my dough, which is one of my super-sloppy, no-knead, ultra-wet doughts that produces challah that feels like cake, but which lacks the substance needed for those truly chashuvah (chashuvah = important / substantial) braids or designs.
Here are the snakes.  This is after TWO stretch-and-fold operations, and believe me, it’s still totally sloppy and trying to melt into the tabletop.  Call it Extreme Baking.  The snakes are still a little fat in the middle, but much more elongated than usual.

Now, you lay them in a cross-hatch design:

And over, over, over, forwards and back (watch the tutorial!) until just the ends are left, which you bang and pinch together.  First one, not too shabby…

So I got overconfident with the second one, and tucked the ends under too much, leaving this weird blobbish look on top.  Ugh.

So I figured it out, kind of… when tucking the ends, you tuck them on TOP of the over-under bits, not THROUGH into the centre, or else they’ll be visible.
Before tucking: isn’t this a beautiful shape in its own right?

Now, tuck… on TOP, not THROUGH:

All tucked in!

Now, flip the challah:

…Aaaaand repeat.  (see the ugly lumpy one at the bottom right side???)

… and done!

Okay, still pretty klutzy… but hopefully, delicious!
(and YES, that is a laundry hamper with a rack perched on it… hard to find table space around here on a homschool / cooking Friday!)
How do you do round challahs?  Lazy way?  Fancy way?  Something in between???

A Large-ish Quantity of Dough

 

Besides a bunch of Auntie Sally’s challah which I whipped up before Rosh Hashanah and still had in the freezer, this is the main “overnight sponge challah” I’ve been playing around with this yom tov season.

Because the base recipe doesn’t make very much, I thought I’d quadruple it for the first days of Sukkos, when we were expecting lots of guests.  With the help of my trusty sourdough spreadsheet (which works even with NO sourdough, just by filling in “0g” of starter), here’s what I came up with for the sponge:

1620 g flour (mix of ap and bread)

1960 g water

200 g sugar

220 g oil

4 tbsp salt

4 tsp yeast

Here’s the wet stuff going into the bucket first.  With its happy new batteries, my scale held it all,  even though officially it only holds up to 2kg.  I was so happy I’d finally gotten around to marking the bucket weight on the side, just in case.  That way, if the scale goes out (or goes to sleep) while I’m measuring, I can weigh the thing, then subtract the bucket weight with a calculator. 

(on previous occasions, prior to labelling the bucket, the process had involved screaming, then estimating based on the last number I’d glimpsed on the screen)

Now, in goes all the dry stuff.  I mix the flours together carefully, so I don’t have patches of one or the other – even if they’re similar, like all-purpose and bread.

Not too many kneads later, the sponge:

And now it sits and rises overnight:

In the morning – easy!  No math!  Just mix in flour until you have a workable, soft dough.  Ted took this picture of me doing it a couple of weeks ago.  YES, I do it by hand.  It’s gloppy at first, but you know you’re nearly done when your hand comes out cleaner and cleaner and cleaner…

Finally, the whole blob comes out onto the table for some real kneading, about 10 minutes’ worth, depending on the size.

And then it rests in the bucket again – or buckets, as the case may be… this one used the bucket and a big bowl, and both opened themselves up after a couple of hours.

Take the thing out and fold it gently once or twice while it’s rising, if you’re so inclined.  (I was.)

 

Here’s the finished dough.  Waah!  Too much!  But actually, it would turn out to be not enough; I was grateful for those “extra” two challahs in the freezer, because we used both of them up with all our guests over yom tov.

Divided it up into my standard 675-gram portions.  I had enough to make 8 p0rtions and a very generous 9th which I left in the bucket.  Fried in a cast-iron pan, the leftovers became 12 nice-sized “naan” flatbreads for our second day’s lunch. 

Oh, also I made a bracha and separated a piece of challah.  I usually do it without a bracha, but for this quantity of flour, there was no doubt it needed one.

As usual, I rolled the blobs flat first, then rolled them up into these fat “grub” shapes.  (kind of like an open-ended bâtard, in classic French baking)  This is a Maggie Glezer technique that I think is supposed to make the dough “stronger.”  Dunno… but I like to do it before I roll them out, so I do.

Roll each grub out to the length of the table.  I’m sure this is the REAL reason we have the custom of eating round challahs at this time of year – can you imagine braiding challahs for so many days of yom tov???  Round is easy!

(and for some reason, people are JUST as impressed by a super- easy snail challah as they are with a fancy braid – go figure)

(like how everything on the table, mayonnaise, colouring supplies, spray oil, tinfoil pans, lapbook, etc., has been shoved to the other side to make room for the snake…?)

This year, I have learned that the secret to good round challahs is:  hold the loose end and wrap it around!!!  If you hold the centre and twist it around, though it may be easier, the challah will get too “high” and bunchy, like a turban, instead of a nice flat snail-shape.  Hard to describe, but if yours are coming out too high, try holding the other end as you wrap.

And here they are – if not perfect, very, very yummy indeed.  And true to form, not a single picture of a finished challah.  They were finished literally the minute before yom tov started.  And now they’re gone… so no pictures!