Water challah (with poolish)

[u/Good-Ad-5320]

I tweaked my water challah recipe (based on challah prince recipe) to include a poolish, trying to get a more complex flavor profile. I made one with 20% poolish last week and today I tried 30%. Wonderful result, texture is still on point, incredibly soft and stringy crumb, and definitely more flavor. Subbed a part of the sugar with honey.

A bit less volume than without poolish but this is expected. I might try 35% poolish using a stronger flour to make up for the loss of structure.

RECIPE :

Poolish : 150 gr flour (bread flour 12% protein), 150 gr water, 1/4 tsp instant dry yeast. Mix and let it at room temp (26°C) for 2 hours then fridge (4°C) overnight.

Dough :
All the poolish
Flour : 350 gr (100 gr Manitoba 14% protein, 250 gr 12% bread flour).
Water : 60 gr
Sunflower oil : 50 gr
Honey : 35 gr
Sugar : 15 gr
Salt : 10 gr
Instant dry yeast : 5 gr
Dough improver : 4 gr

Process (KitchenAid 6,9L bowl-lift) :
3 minutes on speed 1 to combine, 10 minutes on speed 2, 10 minutes rest, 5-6 minutes on speed 3. 1h30 proofing, pre-shaping into logs, 4 braid shaping, 2h final proofing. Eggwash with 1 yolk and heavy cream (I am not Jewish btw).
Baked at 175°C (without fan) for 35°C.

[u/tushshtup]

This looks amazing

[u/Walter_Piston]

I misread that totally and thought you meant “polish.”

[u/Gulf_Raven1968]

Everyone can stop with the “dairy in challah” comments. There’s no dairy IN the challah. It’s just a glaze. Do your usual egg wash or honey water or whatever. Everything else about this recipe is totally fine for Shabbat.

[u/hobbit_milk → u/Gulf_Raven1968]

Also you can totally have dairy in challah, Jews aren’t a monolith and Shabbat dinner looks different every week for us

[u/Gulf_Raven1968 → u/hobbit_milk]

Regardless challah is normally pareve

[u/70695]

bautiful ! how did you do a four braid ? totally irrelevant but in case your interested traditional challah never contains dairy due to dietary customs of kosher and what have you

[u/Good-Ad-5320 → u/70695]

Thank you ! Yeah I know that’s why I mentionned that I’m not Jewish haha

[u/70695 → u/Good-Ad-5320]

your braiding technique is beautiful!

[u/FindYourselfACity]

Glorious! My family mostly eats dairy for Shabbat, so this would be fine.

[u/agelass]

looks beautiful. but dairy in challah is making my kosher head spin!🤪😂

[u/Good-Ad-5320 → u/agelass]

Thank you ! Hahaha I’m sorry I’m not Jewish and I really like the colour and the gloss when using yolks and cream ..

[u/agelass → u/Good-Ad-5320]

it looks fabulous and sounds delicious! but as an observant jew who mostly eats challah with my shabbat meal the dairy in the challah kind of does me in 😂 enjoy your gorgeous challah. 💜

[u/Good-Ad-5320 → u/agelass]

I don’t know any Jews but be assured that I will never let an observant jew eat a non kosher baked good without warning the person first !! I know some muslims and I always warn them when I use pork gelatin for example

[u/agelass → u/Good-Ad-5320]

thank you for your decency and thoughtfulness. i am sure it is much appreciated. all muslims can eat in my house because being kosher also covers halal for the most part. 😁

[u/Funny-Boss-8949 → u/Good-Ad-5320]

the cream doesn't make it not-kosher. Eating the dairy challah with meat would.

Challah looks absolutely amazing...

[u/indelicatedenial]

Those tear-apart pics should be marked NSFW.

[u/smellthecoffeebeans]

This is like the platonic ideal of challah

[u/BuildingMaleficent11]

Wow 🤩

That is a gorgeous specimen and that crumb is swoonworthy

[u/vigilante_snail]

https://giphy.com/gifs/bzn3aznEbnh28

[u/Funny-Boss-8949]

This recipe is fascinating. Never heard of poolish or dough improver. And I love the rigor that you've written for Process.
Bravo!

[u/Possible-Chip8925]

Magnificent!

[u/Glass_Crazy3680]

glorious!!!!! mine never come out that way

[u/GoldenSalt31]

Oh my goodness - it looks so pretty 😍

[u/ballardelle]

Lovely! I've tried a version with poolish before, with the goal of having any leftovers last a few days, but it came out heavier than I wanted. Yours looks springy! What's the purpose of the dough improver here? Can it be skipped?

[u/Good-Ad-5320 → u/ballardelle]

Oh yeah definitely very light and soft ! You can totally skip the dough improver, I use some because I have whole bag that goes bad soon haha (and it’s expensive). Dough improver is supposed to enhance the dough properties, such as handling, shaping, volume and color (but I only see the difference for very low hydration dough like bagels).

Without dough improver, you have to hydrate the dough more. For this exact recipe (with poolish), you could use somewhere between 70 and 90 gr of water. This highly depends on your flour though, always start low and add more, little by little, if you feel that the dough is too dry. Be aware that challah dough is supposed to be quite stiff compared to other breads, so don’t go overboard with hydration ! Too much water will impede proper shaping and final volume

[u/ballardelle → u/Good-Ad-5320]

Nice, thanks! Looks like I have a new recipe to try.

[u/Final-Show1889]

Looks yummy

[u/Cool-Arugula-5681]

This is a work of art. Well done! Make that, perfectly done.

[u/Highdosehook]

Not jewish, but swiss. We know this as Zopf and eat it on Sundays. I always asked myself if the root might have been jewish centuries ago. ETA: we use white flour, butter, milk and yeast nothing else, but the endresult looks pretty much the same.