Oh, I love this question. Even for bread, I wonder about the actual provability of my claim (deli rye??). From my personal culinary Jewish background, I'd also have to nominate the half and full sour pickle. Something for spirited debate, for sure.
I have a question about freezing challah. I make this recipe https://www.kingarthurbaking.com/recipes/classic-challah-recipe and scale it up to 5 lbs of flour. I like to divide it up into 3 days to make the timing more reasonable. One day to make the dough, second day to braid and a third day to bake (in the refrigerator between days). Is it better to bake the challahs before freezing or freeze before baking? If I freeze them unbaked, can I put them frozen directly in the oven and increase the time, or do they need to thaw at room temperature first?
Michael - definitely the latter. Freezing raw dough is a crapshoot, because you never know how much yeast is going to die in the deep freeze, so it's hard to say what sort of fermentation you'll get once it comes out. (You'd definitely need to let it thaw first, either way.) As long as the bread is fresh when it goes in, and wrapped very well (two or three layers), it will emerge from the freezer nearly as good as it was when it first cooled off.
Thanks for this informative post. In the recipe, roughly how long should the individual strands be for 2 standard 3 plait loaves? I’ve only made challah a couple of times with varying success and as a novice would like a target. Thanks!
This is a great question--length is flexible, but it determines the overall length/height ratio of the finished loaf. I like to think about it more in terms of the diameter of the strands: around an inch and a half usually yields me the best braid for a three-strand loaf, and closer to an inch for a four-strand. This would probably need to be a bit thinner if you were doing a more ambitious number of strands, like 6+. Best of luck in baking!!
Oh, I love this question. Even for bread, I wonder about the actual provability of my claim (deli rye??). From my personal culinary Jewish background, I'd also have to nominate the half and full sour pickle. Something for spirited debate, for sure.
I have a question about freezing challah. I make this recipe https://www.kingarthurbaking.com/recipes/classic-challah-recipe and scale it up to 5 lbs of flour. I like to divide it up into 3 days to make the timing more reasonable. One day to make the dough, second day to braid and a third day to bake (in the refrigerator between days). Is it better to bake the challahs before freezing or freeze before baking? If I freeze them unbaked, can I put them frozen directly in the oven and increase the time, or do they need to thaw at room temperature first?
Michael - definitely the latter. Freezing raw dough is a crapshoot, because you never know how much yeast is going to die in the deep freeze, so it's hard to say what sort of fermentation you'll get once it comes out. (You'd definitely need to let it thaw first, either way.) As long as the bread is fresh when it goes in, and wrapped very well (two or three layers), it will emerge from the freezer nearly as good as it was when it first cooled off.
Thank you for the clear answer! I’ll make sure I only freeze fully baked loaves.
Late to the party here, but I can vouch that this recipe (and usually all challah recipes) freeze great from fully baked, wrapped how Andrew suggests.
Thanks for this informative post. In the recipe, roughly how long should the individual strands be for 2 standard 3 plait loaves? I’ve only made challah a couple of times with varying success and as a novice would like a target. Thanks!
This is a great question--length is flexible, but it determines the overall length/height ratio of the finished loaf. I like to think about it more in terms of the diameter of the strands: around an inch and a half usually yields me the best braid for a three-strand loaf, and closer to an inch for a four-strand. This would probably need to be a bit thinner if you were doing a more ambitious number of strands, like 6+. Best of luck in baking!!
How long does it last after made?