BAKE 30 – JULY 29, 2020

Yeast Utilized: 2 teaspoons

Needed more breakfast bread, so I decided to try a braided challah again. (Preferably one that doesn’t need to be turned into bread pudding.)

Gathered ingredients, all dry stuff in the bowl…which means I actually added the salt too early. Whoops.

Up next, that cup of water, milk and butter on the right…

Added the first dose of wet ingredients.

On deck: Three lightly beaten eggses!

Stirred in the eggs, which took a bit of elbow grease and time.

Time to start adding the flour, which took even more elbow grease and time, and eventually just straight-up kneading for five minutes.

Ready for first rise.

Risen!

The making of the 15-inch braids went a little bit better this time, though they still ended up quite long, so more like 18 inches. And I forgot how to braid for a second and had to check the internet. (I almost called my oldest niece, who is a braiding expert.)

Ready to braid.

Braided! And ready for second rise.

Second risen!

Now, time for the egg wash, even though egg washes make me nervous. They make the bread brown so fast! But we’re going to do this.

Washed with eggs. Ready for baking.

Baked!

At about 15 minutes in, I covered it with aluminum foil and put in for another 10 minutes. I decided to risk an underbaked loaf rather than an overbaked one like last time (gnawing on that crust was just unpleasant, y’all).

But success! I went in for the first slice and found that the crust, for all its brownness, was still quite soft. Yay!

And quite tasty, too.

To the next bake—–>