How To Bake Challah Bread with Rabbi Joel Mosbacher

hey my friends welcome to our place I amgoing to make some color with you todaywe’re using a recipe from one of ourfavorite cookbooks Balabushka by Einatadmony and you can see by all the tabsthat we have lots of things in here thatwe like we’ll take you through thedifferent parts we’re gonna make thedough and then we’ll come back and braidit and then we’ll bake it and show youthe final outcome so I’ve never doneanything quite like this before so bearwith me I have my trusty assistant ELISAwith me and and we’re gonna try and makeit work you start with a big bowl and inthe big bowl you put 8 2/3 cups of flourof regular all-purpose flour I reallylike baking and I become a big fan ofbaking I wait with a scale so I’drecommend that if you end up using ascale like me then you need about 1,300grams of all-purpose flour and you putthat in a big bowl and you make a wellin the center of the bowl and then inthe well you put one package of activedry yeast and a few drops of honey I’mgoing to come back to more honey lateron a few drops of honeyand about a half a cup of water allright there and this well in the centerand we’re going to let that sit for afew minutes and start to activate theyeast so flour yeast a little few dropsof honey and half a cup of warm waterI’m gonna put this over here for onesecond and let that work now in a secondBowl we’re gonna combine another twocups of warm water and the remaininghoney so it’s a total of about 3/4 cupsof honey so hopefully we can get this tocome out we did our trusty trick ofspraying the inside of the cup sohopefully the honey comes out easilythen we need a quarter cup of oil I’musing avocado oil trying to use a littlebit healthier oil but you can use canolaoil if that’s what you got a 1/4 cup ofcanola oil in the same Bowl we’re gonnaput two eggs room-temperature is best[Music]I love making bread about the science ofit there’s nothing like the smell offresh bread in your house unfortunatelyon this video we will not be able torecreate the smell of a thing but you’llhave to trust meand already just the east the snow theeast and honey it’s a beautiful thingpaula is described in the torah it’s abread that we have prescribed in theTorah was used in the temple times andthe sacrificial rites we’re gonna pausehere just a minute and you have aboutfive more minutes for the feast whichyou can already see is starting tobubble that’s a good sign it’s a lieit’s aliveand it’s gonna work out very nicely solet’s give just you know about five moreminutes we want to total over about tenminutes until it’s nice and bubbly soone more thing to this same mixturewe’re going to add a tablespoon and ahalf of kosher salt if you’re using thescale it’s about twenty seven grams sowe’ll mix that all here and now we havethe east bubbling away and starting tocome alive and we have the other mixtureand we want to give that about five moreminutes so we can get that a little bitof a break and we’ll be back with youand we’re back if you look you can seethat the yeast is nice and frothy that’sthe energy to make our bread rise sowhat we’re going to do is dump all therest of this liquid in there[Music]yumminess carefully mix together smellsreally good you have to take my word forit sorry I’m gonna keep teasing you likethat that looks pretty good now put itout onto a lightly floured surface thisrecipe is pretty good in the sense thatusually we don’t need a lot of an extraflour you don’t want too much extraflour because you don’t want it to betoo dry you can always add and mygrandmother taught me but it’s harder tosubtract I grew up with my grandmothermy Oh me making kala every Fridaymorning sometimes when we would stayover at their place when my parents wereon vacation or something in my memory ifI woke up at 5:00 in the morning in themiddle of the night I would hear mygrandmother working and I would smellthe holiday and so it’s a connection toyou not only to our Jewish tradition butfor me too tomato me Alice after whichour oldest re isn’t it so now you havethis mask and you’re going to start toneed it it’ll come together prettyquickly and eating is you know I’m surethere’s many different ways of kneadingit but I started gather it up and pushit away and then I’ll turn it gather itpush it away gather it and push it awaydough feels really nice I’m look it’salready that’s already a ball it’s notdone I’m gonna need itfor five or seven minutesit’s a little bit wet so this process iswhat puts air into the dough then it’sgoing to rise it feels good it’s alittle bit damp so we’re going to have alittle more flour here in a secondthat’s getting kind of sticky so that’sa good indication we did a little bitmore fire but again not too muchread it down a little bit on your handsso just to remind you as we are kneadingit’s a total of about two and a halfcups of warm water 8 and 2/3 cups are1,300 grams of all-purpose flour apacket of package of yeast 3/4 of a cupof honey you could use sugar but whywould you do that a quarter cup of oilof your choice we use avocado oil andthen we added a 1/2 teaspoons or 27grams of kosher salt and 2 eggs that’sthe total ingredients that you needactually don’t always use a roll hatusually doing this on that sort ofkitchen counter it doesn’t tend to stickthat much to the kitchen counter so it’sjust a feel thing recipe says until it’ssmooth and elastic II so a couple ofthings while I’m continuing to need youknow making bread with East is thetime-consuming process and so I feellike sometimes the thing that gets inthe way for people is the idea thatafter this the bread has go has to risefor an hour to an hour and a half andthen you form the Falla into loaves andbraid it and then ask to rest another 25minutes and then you bake it for another30 minutes and who has time for that nowwhen you’re working from home maybe youhave time for that but I’ve learnedalong the way that there is a cool trickthat you can do if you couple differentversions of it that you can do if youdon’t have the time sort of like a threeand a half hour for four hour process ifyou don’t have that timea row you can do this much finishkneading it and then you can be one oftwo things either you can put it in thefridge overnight so this is actuallyThursday we could put it in the fridgetonight and then tomorrow pull it outabout four hours beforehand if it’s beenin the fridge so then really good breadRises twice and so it’s gonna rise nowwe’re gonna make it all in a row tonightbut you could take it now put it in abowl put it in the fridge or even aplastic bag put it in the fridge and itwill count as one rise while it’scooling off and then you take it out forhours before you want to bake it andthat’s the second rise so so you workbackwards from what you want to cook itand then you don’t have to be waitingaround for the whole process anotherthing you can do and this makes tworeally pretty big size loavespretty good size of those if you don’twant all of this dough and this is oftenwhat we do is that you can you canfreeze dough you could make it nav likeyou wanted to next Friday night youcould do it now but one thing that weoften will do is cut this in half andeither make half of it right away or putit in the fridge for overnight and takethe other half and put it in the freezerinside of a plastic bag and that way youdon’t have to make dough every week butI’m gonna roll we make do about everyother week we bake half of it and we putthe other half in the freezer and if youfreeze the dough then you take it outabout six hours before you want to makeit and away you go it’s one rot one risewhile it’s freezing and one rise wellit’s fine if you’re a regular breadmaker I’m sure you knew that I’m alittle slow on the uptake so it took mea long time and it sort of got in theway of making kala more regularly Ithink it’s pretty good you can kind ofput your fingers in it if it’s kind ofbouncing back that’s good the otherthing and I don’t know where we firstlearned this is like it should haveabout the consistency of an earlobe whenyou pinch itfrom Omid Allison maybe that’s where wewanted it I’m pretty sure that’s wherewe learned it so now what we’re gonna dois we are going to put it back in thegoal and we’re gonna cover it with atowel and we’re gonna put it in a sortof a warm place that doesn’t have to beon the stove but just not a direct draftand we’re gonna let it rise we’ll seeyou in an hour and half and Rebecca it’sbeen about 90 minutes and we have ourchallah that’s been resting a watchedchallah never rises so that’s that’s arule so we’re gonna open it up da it’sgotten nice and big yeah it looksbeautiful and now we’re gonna turn itinto loaves here so we’re gonna a littlebit of flour on a cutting board worksout well because you can put some flouron your hands and then you can turn thedough I will onto the cutting boardturn it over and then this is gonna maketwo loaves so we’re gonna cut it in halffirst so we’ve cut the dough in half andthe reality is you could cut it in fourright so this is a lot of dough oftentimes we will take half the dough cut inhalf again and make two loaves out ofthis and then two loaves out of this fortonight we’re gonna just make two bigloaves if you want to spread it out ifyou have if it’s just you in the houseor just you and I’ve got another personwe have two big kids in our house so wedecided that we’re going to make two bigloaves this week but again it’s flexibleso assuming you’re gonna make just twoloaves out of this you’re going to cutthis into threethen roll it out my usual trusty rollingit out and braiding assistant is behindthe camera so she is putting a lot offaith in mereally nice day[Music]and you’re actually gonna take the fellafrom the other half and we’ll talk aboutthat in a secondsnakes roughly the same size from thishalf again this really could make twoloaves just from this half well it’sjust ELISA and I we definitely do thatso you can gauge it based on your crowdand the appetite of your crowdand then if we’re going to braid them sothe way we would do this is put thethree ends of the three right next toeach other and really push them togetherso they’re not going to get separatednow this is the real pressure of thevideo will I be able to breathe whileyou’re watching okay we’re gonna braidagain when you get to the other end youcan press it down really really so thatthey don’t separate and then you’regoing to fold that end underneath overhere and fold that end underneath overhere and then our baking sheetall right and then we have the otherhalf which we’re going to do the samebasic thing but there actually is atradition of what’s called taking Salahand the Book of Numbers when it’stalking about the making of the challahin the temple times or even in the weChicana in the wilderness it says therethat you’re supposed to take some of thefirst fruits of your harvest and give itto God so there is a tradition of takingan olive sized piece of challah andburning it basically it doesn’t belongto you it belongs to God and there is ablessing that you say when you take kalaand it goes like this barber comes outand I hope in ml if I allow my shirteach other but Mitzvah top it’s IvanaLahav rish Allah blessed are you O Godthat makes us unique with Commandmentsand a truck instruct us to separate kalaand so the idea is you take a littlepiece off and this isn’t for you this isfor God and so we’re not going to eatthat we’re going to bake it separatelyand then throw it away there are peoplewho actually at this moment in theprocess of making kala will offerprayers of well-being for people thatthey love and so there are somespiritual kind of traditions related tomaking kala but this is called takingkala which is actually a command at oneof those 613 commandments and so we’regoing to leave that there and we willbake it and then it will not be ours toeat so we’re going to take the remainingparts of the following cut into thirdsagain so we’re going to take our threeparts here and do the same thing againmake three snakes I have to say thisdough feels really good one of thethings you’ll again if you’re watchingthis in your regular bread maker youyou know what I mean but there is just afeel about making bread and you just cantell when the dough is just just rightyou want them about the same size and Iam glad to consult with you well sharethe recipe but if you want to talk moreI would be glad to consult with you Ialso have helped people they call us sowhen this craziness coronavirus passesI’d be happy to come to your place ifyou want and we can make holla togetherso you’re gonna press the ends togetherthis is the way that you make sure thatthe ends don’t come apart and then braidand you press the ends together you putthem underneath there you are and thenwe’re gonna place it on our baking pinand then we are going to cover withtowel again and we’re gonna let rest forabout 25 minutes and in that time I’malso going to take an egg and separateit and keep the yolk and beat up theyolk a little bit I like to add a littlebit of maple syrup to make it very sweetyou can add just a drop of water or twoso when we come back we will have we’llput the egg wash on and we’ll playsomething on you know a little sometoppings on our challah we’ll talk aboutthat when we come back and we are backit’s been about 25 minutes and thesebeautiful hollowed the separated kalahave risen a bit more we have a mixtureof an egg yolk and a little bit of maplesyrup here again you can’t just usewater but I found that Michael Ceraheiress here adds a nice little touchand then I’m going to spread some ofthat on to get your collargrateful to my assistant Alisa here asanother digger has a degree invideography not really but she should bythe end of this did you look it theseare nice and big again like I saidbefore we would often make four hollowsout of this but we have hungry monkeysaround and actually when it comes to ourtoppings you’ll see that I don’t thinkthese are going to go stale I think Ithink they will get eaten so thequestion is what do you put on yourfella and there’s a great debate in theTalmud not reallysome say you can only put poppy seeds orsesame seeds no no no now my Alisa saysnew that is not a thing I would say thatit’s probably fair to say that for manyyears that’s what we did like when wemade challah we put poppy seeds or if wewere really exotic we put sesame seedsand then I spent some time on a farm inReisterstown Maryland I think that’sactually when it all beganI was on sabbatical and I spent aboutsix weeks working on an organic farmthat’s a story for today I do wishorganic farm and every week we made callit together and the first Shabbat thatwe were there someone took out cinnamonand sugar and I said what are you gonnado with that and they said I’m gonna putit on our fella and I said that’s not athing challah either only has you knowsesame seeds and if you’re really exoticpoppy seeds and in fact that summer Ilearned about all kinds of things youcould put on follow we’re actually gonnamake one follow with tuxedo sesame seedsso we’ll have kind of a savory flavoroften now we’ll think about what are wegonna cook on Friday night what are thespices that we’re gonna haveour food on Friday and we will often putthat on our follow this is a fairlyclassic with a twist because it’s tuxedosesame seeds you can really put anythingyou want and if you’re a plain kind ofperson you can do that too you do alittle bit more what do you think busyeah yeah okay so obsessed when we seethem this one and I am we are all aboutthe dessert in our house one of thegreat things about our married lifetogether is that I married into a familyfor whom dessert was not was thisdessert was automatically part of themeal it’s not good oh good okay sothat’s our savory challah and now we’regonna do a sweet one so we’re gonna putsome sugar and some cinnamon we have putbasil we have put Italian seasoningwe put cumin you can do whatever youhowever your heart is moved you canblend your your taste with what else isgoing with your dinner we have foundthat you kind of have to put a bunchmore than you might think if you wantedto really be able to taste it you needto put a significant amount and so thatwas some sugar now we’re puttingcinnamonyou’re just about ready together when wehave a preheated 350-degree oven and weare going to bake these college theseare big the recipe says bake 20 to 30minutes these will be at least 30minutes at 350 and then we will comeback to you and show you the gloriousscholars that we have made and you’llhave a chance to see it from start tofinish so we’ll see you in half an hournice to big beautiful hollowed we endedup cooking them for about 40 minutesthese are pretty heavy-duty monsterfellas and the last thing you want to dois cut into a follow and find that it’sstill kind of soggy on the inside so weare going to enjoy these at tomorrownight for Shabbat and then I have afeeling this one is going to becomeFrench toast really soon so thanks forjoining me it’s been fun to do this Ihope you make your own kala and not justenjoy this video and we’ll see you soonshabbat shalom this is what a wonderfultradition that you can do on your own orwith your family and I hope this hasinspired you to want to try and makeyour own column take care let me knowhow it goes[Music]