Saturday, December 04, 2004


massive relief

hamelman challah altho' i keep saying that the canonization of j. hamelman must cease, events cry out otherwise, even in the face of disaster. despite these pitfalls, you see the beautiful result here.

i was discussing challah with a long-time friend of mine friday afternoon, at which time he remarked that he had never actually seen a 6-strand challah. well, he has now.

like all the hamelman breads i've tried, it emerges large, lofty, beautiful and delicious. despite the 6 egg yolks, the bread isn't excessively decadent -- i mean, we're discussing 6 yolks for 2 loaves, each more than 16 in. long and 3-3/4 in. high.

as you can see, the hamelman braiding diagrams are excellent, as i had never made anything more than a regular 3-strand challah braid before. but this is how nice the bread looks on only the first try!

the bread is painted with an egg-white wash for light sheen. after only 30 mins. in a 375 degree oven, out pops these gorgeous challah, their mouth-watering aroma drifting thru the house.

in the future i'm going on to the challah recipes from maggie glezer's new book. and still pondering what to do about my mixer situation.

but in the meantime i can highly recommend hamelman's challah to all. mr. right, who gets the photo credit here, snarfed down several pieces before it even had a chance to cool.

at first when he heard the amount of egg yolks in the recipe, he insisted that i give away a loaf; it was obviously too unhealthy. but once he tried a slice, he reversed course and declared both loaves keepers!

"but i promised at least one as a gift," i protested. "you can make more," he said. . .

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