egg bread braid
Challah is an egg bread that holds deep religious significance in the Jewish faith.
“According to Jewish tradition, the three Sabbath meals (Friday night, Saturday lunch, and Saturday late afternoon) and two-holiday meals (one at night and lunch the following day) each begin with two complete loaves of bread. This “double loaf” commemorates the manna that fell from the heavens when the Israelites wandered in the desert for forty years after the Exodus from Egypt. The manna did not fall on the Sabbath or holidays; instead, a double portion would fall the day before the holiday or sabbath.” (excerpt from Wikipedia)
Challah recipes always make enough dough for two loaves. Three important steps to the perfect challah are; three risings instead of the usual two (one of those being a slow-rise in the refrigerator), using two coats of egg wash for a shiny lacquer-like crust, and not over-baking.
Challah is delicious and used the next day for French toast. Especially loaves with raisins, or in this case, craisins. I substituted dried cranberries for the raisins, as my family prefers craisins to raisins. We’ll be enjoying the plain loaf with our Easter dinner on Sunday and the craisin loaf for a French toast breakfast on Easter Monday.
April 6, 2012 2 Comments
all knotted up
Luckily none of my students are (or need to be) on a low-carb diet. We had an entire day of breads and sandwiches. Focaccia, quick bread, biscuits, cookie sandwiches, and these yeast dough cuties. If you don’t have time to make your own dough, you can purchase frozen dough at the grocery store or fresh dough from a store such as Trader Joe’s. The knots are fun to tie and with a little practice end up looking very “restaurant quality” professional. Just be sure to have fun with it! As you can see in the picture below, the teen boys in this week’s class did – great job guys! And that’s my fabulous son/assistant, Connor, lurking in the background.
June 16, 2010 No Comments
Christmas was merry and bright
Christmas at the Hopkins’ house was full of family, food, fun, food, gifts, food, friends, more food, and laughter. The most honored and long-standing tradition in our house is our Christmas breakfast. It always consists of only two items; the artery-clogging, sickeningly sweet, and utterly delicious and delectable brown sugar-baked bacon and cinnamon-pecan rolls. These rolls are only made on Christmas day, as your heart and waistline could not bear them more than once a year. And the bacon, that we have twice a year. Once on Christmas to celebrate Jesus’ birth and then again on Easter to celebrate His resurrection. Of course, the bacon itself has nothing to do with either blessed event, just with our traditional family meals. Again, the bacon is only eaten twice a year because of its horrific health ramifications! Today’s post shall focus on the rolls and tomorrow, the bacon. The dough for the rolls is a classic James Beard recipe for Refrigerator Potato Bread, the original recipe can be found in his book, Beard on Bread, available on Amazon.com.
I make a double batch of the dough and use it three times over Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. The first third is used for potato rolls for Christmas Eve dinner with my mother, the next third for the cinnamon rolls on Christmas morning, and the final third for a fresh batch of rolls for Christmas dinner with my dad. If you would like to do the same, the dough needs to be made on December 23rd and refrigerated overnight to begin the process. The dinner potato rolls are also a traditional part of our Thanksgiving meal each year.
Another thing I just have to share with you is what caused all the laughter at our house this year. I stumbled upon the funniest thing a few weeks ago. Decoy gift boxes at theonion.com. They are the most clever and hilarious things I’ve seen in a long time. I purchased the four-pack, check out the site when you have a free moment and consider buying a pack for next year or for birthday gifts throughout 2010.
December 26, 2009 5 Comments