Challah!

Even though I have managed to pick up a few "fancy" cooking techniques over the last couple of years, I do not consider myself much of a cook.  I do, however, consider myself a very amateur baker.  Not necessarily the cookies and cakes sort of baker, although I certainly have done some of that too.  No, I love baking bread. There's just something about being able to feel the dough beneath you as you work it with your hands and the all time and effort it takes to craft a tasty, wonderful-smelling loaf of bread. Today, I tried my hand at making challah, a Jewish bread that is known for being rich and sweet.

Besides just wanting to bake bread, I had an ulterior motive:  I'm going to make french toast later this week. Now this won't be just any french toast: I've got my eye on a recipe from Alton Brown.  I'm a huge fan and I greatly enjoy watching reruns of his show Good Eats, an entertaining exploration of food and science.  On one of the episodes, he set out to make the perfect french toast using, you guessed it, challah. After doing a little bit of research, I decided that I would use a modified version of this recipe.

I was a little worried because my dough was a bit dry.  I haven't quite figured out how much more liquid I need to add to recipes when I use half AP (all purpose) flour and half whole white wheat flour.  Even though I added extra water, it wasn't enough.  I'm also wondering if part of the problem was that the whole white wheat flour I used wasn't as finely ground as the stuff I've used in the past.  It felt a bit grainy today as I was trying to knead it.

Also, challah is typically braided, and I couldn't quite figure out the directions I was trying to follow for a six-stranded braid.  My attempt is on the right; the other loaf is braided with four strands.  Don't they look delicious?