Mother’s day Challah

Anagha

9 years ago

My mom is an amazing woman. Strong, caring, intelligent and yet loving. She is the strength of the family and we are so lucky to be born to her.

She is my inspiration in so many ways. She manages home while handling the business just as well. I still remember to what lengths she would go ( and still does to make things for us. Be it a dress for a play in school, be it packing tiffin with special treats for the school trip, be it helping with math homework to be it helping us with the babies, she does it effortlessly.

She is a great cook, a great entrepreneur and so many more things, but the biggest things that stands out is her unconditional love towards her family. She brings every one together. So today;s recipe is dedicated to my Aai( Thats what I call her).

She always pushes us to challenge ourselves. As you all know I cook a lot but have not been much of a baker. So this birthday resolution was to learn baking.

Today I have made Challah. Challah is a jewish bread( said like halla). You would typically see this in a braided form. Since I am making this for mother’s day I wanted to incorporate something that is significant to my Mom. My Mom not only loves us all very much, she has also created a family where all of us love each other very much.We are four siblings and we are like a tight fist.

Today I decided to make a round challah with four ropes and top it with four different seeds. This represent how my Mom’s love has brought us together and sort of her arms around the four of us.

Mother’s day Challah

The recipe comes from a very famous book, Breaking breads . I am in love with that book and you will be seeing many more recipes soon. I love how he not gives step by step instructions but also tells a bit of a history as well.

Ingredients

Dough

1000 grams ( about 7 cups) flour sifted well
400 grams room temperature water
15 grams Active dry yeast
100 grams granulated sugar
2 eggs
5 tbsp oil
15 grams salt

Egg wash and toppings

1 large egg
1 tbsp water
1 pinch salt
2/3 cup different seeds, I have used Nigella, Poppy, Fennel and sesame seeds

Mix all of these together to make an egg wash

Method

Make the dough

In a stand mixer, add water and yeast, whisk it till combined
Add flour, eggs, sugar and salt
Mix the dough on low speed till the ingredients are combined. Stop and sracpe the flour if needed to avoid dry flour patches. It should take about 2 mins for the dough to come together
Now increase the speed and knead the dough on medium for about 4 minutes.
Now take the dough on a lightly floured surface
stretch and fold the dough for about a minute as shown in the picture below

Dough

Stretch and fold

Dough for rising

Raised dough
Rest the dough for about 45 mins. It should be about 70% risen
Heat the oven at 425 F
Shaping the dough-Today I am going to shape it in a circle with 4 ropes, representing my Mom’s four kids.
- Take the risen dough and gently put it on a floured board.
- Make it into a rectangle, make sure you do not deflate the dough
- Cut the rectangle into 2 pieces. Keep one piece aside.
- With one half of the rectangle, make four parts.
- Roll each part into a 14 inch cylinder
- Weave the four ropes as I call them into a round
- Make a rectangle
  
  Cut in four pieces
  
  Roll into four ropes
  
  Weave to form a circle
Cover and let it proof for at least 40 mins. To check if the dough has risen enough , when you press the dough surface with your finger, the indentation should fill up about 1/2 way. If your dough is not risen, the indentation wont fill, if its over risen, it will fill up to fast
Decorating
- Now comes the fun part, decorating the challah
- Brush with challah with egg-wash
- Sprinkle with seeds of your choice.
Here I have used four different seeds to decorate