I am SO embarrassed! When my sweet momma sees these pictures of my firs -ever attempt at making challah I don’t know whether she will laugh hysterically or cry! I had NO idea my bread would fail to this extent. I’m Jewish by birth!! I should be able to make challah! Sadly, as these pictures will attest…apparently I can’t…at least not yet.
Everything started out just fine. I had all the proper ingredients and I used my scale to weigh everything out. I had the hard white wheat berries that weighed out to 250 grams and ground through my Mockmill 100. I sifted the flour and ran the bran back through my Mockmill before adding it back into the flour. I do think I know what went wrong though. During my stretch and fold sessions the dough kept sticking to my hand so I kept wetting it. I think I inadvertently got my dough way too wet. What I ended up with, after 4 stretch and fold sessions, was what amounted to batter instead of dough.
I never had “dough,” just batter. You should have seen me trying to weigh out globs of batter and then trying to shape them into strands for braiding. Rolling it was impossible. It was unbelievably laughable. I kinda-sorta shaped the blobs into something I could try and braid. I applied an egg wash and some poppy seeds. Then I waited…the loose batter-like mass indeed expanded…
I am SO embarrassed. I’ve never had a bread come out only one inch high! Sadly, this excuse for a loaf of bread is going to end up in the trash bin. I’m sure I’ll try to make a challah again, eventually, but in the meantime I think I’ll stick with my NK sourdough and rye, LOL. At least THOSE have come out awesome and I have provided you a touch of humor this afternoon.
Feel with you! Have made twice an Swiss Zopf…both times did not really come out well: did nit rise on the bottom only on top. Have made prob. hunderts of Zopf over the years and never had a failure. But this recent was a new formula and a new way of braiding which I did not do right.
Don’t give up! just eat more challah! By the way, don’t throw it away: make a bread pudding with it or crumbs.
I have already threatened my hubby with another Zopf.
Oh, @Barbarat! Too late…I’ve already trashed it. LOL! I seriously didn’t even think of bread pudding or crumbs. Oh well, when I have any more epic bread fails I will try and remember your advice. Now I just have to figure out if I’m brave enough to show my mother those pictures…!
I think we’ve all been there! Especially when driven by the desire to try new things. Maybe this can become the thread for sharing bread fail photos.
Here’s a pic of when I tried to leaven flour with green kombucha from the store. I’d had such success with wild yeast water, I figured this would work too. Hahahaha
It bubbled with some larger bubbles but no webby gluten matrix despite being white flour. I saw it to the bitter end though I was 99% sure at shaping time it was not gonna be good. It was about 1.5 inches tall
Actually the crumb looks pretty good to me, the real question is how did it taste? Maybe another recipe is in order, a while back Eric posted a whole wheat Challah that I tried and it turned out great. Don’t give up and remember that a recipe is really only a description of the process and adjustments should be made. Not everyone’s ingredients and conditions are the same. Good luck in your future bakes.
@Fermentada, I see you made a “pancake” too; albeit yours is quite attractive! This morning I am thankful I have some NK sourdough and NK sourdough rye sliced and in my freezer to enjoy for breakfast on this Sunday morning. I’ll have to let you know if I’m brave enough to show those pictures to my mom tomorrow when I see her. Of course, she would benefit from a good laugh, right?
@titanpilot2004, the recipe I tried was Eric’s whole wheat challah. I definitely want to try making it again because I think I know what I did wrong. I believe I made my dough way too wet when doing the series of stretch and folds because I kept wetting my hands. I should have just “lived with” getting a bit of dough stuck to them. I did use a scale to weigh out my ingredients. Now, one of the things I did change up was to use extra-virgin olive oil in the recipe instead of sunflower or other vegetable oil. The only other oil I tend to keep in my house is avocado oil but I know that olive oil is typically used for making challah. The only other thing I might also do is see if I have to reset my stones on my Mockmill 100. I already have them set, according to Eric’s wonderful instruction video, to grind at the finest setting for my particular mill. What I don’t know is if I occasionally have to reset the stones. I’m still SO new at all of this I tend to look at every loaf I bake as an experiment. LOL! BTW, to answer your question, because the loaf was so flat and dense, I think less than 1.5 inches tall, the texture was quite grainy. It was definitely not challah-like, certainly not the delightful challah I remember as a child. All my husband could say was, “Interesting flavor.” I don’t think he was overly impressed with that attempt, LOL. Part of what made the whole experience rather comical is that this is the very first time I have EVER tried to make a challah and I didn’t even try to make a traditional white flour one! My mother, grandmothers and aunts always made perfect challah when I was growing up. And here I was, married for 44 years, finally trying to make my very first one and failing miserably. I will try again…at some point, LOL…and when I do, I’ll document it here on the forum; come success or bread-fail.
I agree that you should try it again, when something doesn’t turn out like it should it is informative to try it a second time and be very careful to observe the textures as you go to try to find where things went wrong. Have fun with your Mockmill, I have a KoMo and really enjoy fresh milled flours. It is nice to see you laugh in the face of failure after all what else can you do about it?
If you want a traditional challah, I suggest following a more traditional recipe. I’ve been making delicious challah, no fail, for 20 years, sometimes with 50% whole wheat flour. I use the dough cycle on a bread machine for mix and first rise. I’m sure I could reproduce manually. I decided for fun to try the Breadtopia recipe and it just wasn’t worth it. Way too complicated and the silence at the Friday night table was deafening!
@Arlo48, I may try a more traditional recipe for challah. If you have one that has worked well for you, perhaps you would send it my way. Maybe trying to make a whole grain challah on my very first try was a little too ambitious. And I do have a bread machine that I could also use the dough cycle for kneading and first rise too. That’s a great suggestion and I will take you up on it when I attempt challah again. And whether I succeed at it or end up with another epic fail, I will post pictures, LOL! For now, I need to feed my sourdough starter, D.J. Cyril, so that I can make another sourdough bread later this week.
Sure, I’m glad to share the recipe I’ve used forever. I know it by heart. I put things in the bread machine in this order:
7/8 c water (1 c if using some whole wheat flour)
2 eggs, lightly beaten
1-1/2 tsp fine salt
1/4 c oil (I use canola but it would be interesting to try olive oil)
1/4 c honey (much better than sugar; a flavorful honey adds a nice touch)
4 c AP flour (or try some ww)
2 tsp dry active yeast (I’ve never tried instant)
Once it’s shaped and has done the second rise, I brush on an egg wash (1 egg yolk + 2 tsp water) and sprinkle sesame seeds which are of course optional. I bake it in a 350 oven. This recipe makes 2 “normal” size challahs. Be sure to bake until golden and nicely brown on the bottom. It’s much tastier when not underbaked. Good luck!
@Arlo48, Many thanks! I may cut the recipe in half so that I only make one loaf of bread at a time. Letting my bread machine do the “heavy work” seems like it could be the plan.
When I started making brad my mother taught me to put Crisco and flour on my hands. It works very well and keeping the dough from sticking to my hands. I have to put on some more flour from time to time, if I kneed a lot. Doesn’t change the dough either.Other than needing to wash with lots of soap and really scrubbing to get the shortening off at the end I’m happy with this.
Long ago I started using rubber gloves to knead and shape my bread, to protect my rings and nails. You can put a bit of oil/crisco on them, and wash them off with soap when done. Works perfectly.
My motto is “Always taste it!” The visual is only the first and to me at least, smallest part of the result. I have made all sorts of things, not only bread, that looking at best disastrous, but tasted great. And, yes, vice versa as well.
@Geoffrey, I did taste it. It just wasn’t the kind of challah I expected and the texture, etc. was just too dense. I truly think it was the way I handled the dough. I accidentally got it way too wet and it just never recovered. So trying to bake a challah is on the back burner for now. I’ve had HUGE success baking NK sourdough and NK sourdough rye. Right now, those are my “go-to” breads. In fact, I think I’m baking another NK sourdough tomorrow. I fed my starter the other day…LOL! And I can’t wait to try baking the NK sourdough cinnamon raisin and the NK sourdough chocolate cherry rye…oh, YUM…I’m salivating just thinking about it. Hmmm, I have about half a loaf each of both the basic sourdough and the rye. Maybe I should bake the cinnamon raisin tomorrow…Oh, decisions, decisions!
I’m a big NK fan too. I like to go with extra long ferment so I put in only about 1% starter and let it go for 12 hours or so, then fridge it for up to 72 hours before baking. I too have been playing with flavor adds, sage, curry powder, Italian seasoning. Hmmmm, chocolate/cherry rye sounds like a winner!
@Geoffrey, I’ve got questions. Sometimes depending on my personal schedule, which does get a bit wonky, I’ll mix up my dough and put it in the refrigerator FIRST and then take it out to finish proofing overnight for baking the next morning. If I’m reading your post correctly, you leave the dough out first and THEN put it in the refrigerator? How long would you take the dough out of the fridge to warm up before finishing up the NK “stretch/fold” and final rise phase? And, you use much less starter? As it turned out, even though I fed him a “snack” yesterday when I checked my starter he needed a bit of attention so I’m probably not baking tomorrow. He needed a clean jar and I only have 1 cup of him left. I try to keep 2 cups of starter going because my sourdough pancake recipe takes an entire cup of starter each time I make them. I digress, sorry…so if you leave your dough in the fridge for up to 72 hours before baking, exactly how much starter do you put in your dough when mixing it up? I’d still love to bake a loaf in the next couple of days as my schedule allows. Being able to use a smaller amount of my starter would be beneficial right now. BTW, the chocolate cherry rye recipe is here on Breadtopia.com. So is the cinnamon raisin one.
just eat more challah! By the way, don’t throw it away: make a bread pudding 
with it or crumbs.
