Rosh Hashana Challah

We noticed we didn't have even ONE challah recipe up.  If you leave out the raisins (and just braid it like normal) this is practically the same as my father's recipe for the best challah ever, I think.

Ingredients

• 1c warm water
• 2.25tsp yeast
• 1tsp sugar
• 3 egg yolks
• 1 egg white
• 3tbsp oil
• 1/3c honey
• 4 to 4.5c flour
• 1.5tsp salt
• about 1/2c raisins, plumped in boiling water
• poppy seeds

In a mixing bowl (or, in our case, in the bowl of your kitchenaid) add the water, yeast, and sugar and stir.  Let that sit for 10 minutes or so to proof and make sure the yeast isn't dead.  Now add the yolks, oil, honey, and salt and about 2c of flour.  Using the dough hook (or your hands or whatever) mix to combine, then add flour by the half cup until the dough pulls away from the sides after kneading for a few minutes.  We wound up using about 4c of flour total.  You'll have to scrape the sides of the bowl down with a spatula a few times.

Now set the dough aside to rise in a warm and humid environment until doubled, about 2 hours.  Make sure you give it the full rise.  When it's done, either braid as usual or, for Rosh Hashana, divide the dough in half.  Working with one half at a time, roll the dough out (on a well floured surface) into a long strip - about 24" long by 6-8" wide.  Lay half the raisins along the middle of the strip.  Working on a long side of the strip, roll the dough up into a single long snake with the raisins trapped in the middle.  Pinch the ends of the dough shut and fold the long strip into a U shape, then twist the two dangling arms together.  It will look kind of like a cruller, I guess?  Do the same with the other piece of dough and the rest of the raisins.  Now place the two twists in a pie pan.  You want to arrange them like two interlocking C's - the idea is to have the bulky fold in the center and the tails twisting around in the same direction.  Like a yin-yang, if that makes more sense.

Set the dough back in a humid environment to rise for another hour.  Just before the hour is up, preheat the oven to 350.  Mix the egg white with some water (about 1:1) and whisk together.  When the hour is up and the oven preheated, brush the challah with the egg wash and sprinkle liberally with poppy seeds.  Bake at 350 for about 30 minutes until it's done (and sounds slightly hollow when tapped, etc).

Thoughts: the dough was very easy to work with.  Despite using the kitchenaid and kneading the hell out of the dough, the gluten really relaxed.  I think this may have to do with two things: 1) we mixed all the wet ingredients before adding the flour.  This meant that the fat was allowed to coat the flour particles when it was mixed together, so less gluten was allowed to develop.  2) we let it rise for a full 2 hours rather than just an hour or whatever, so that probably helped.  Arranging the dough was actually pretty easy.  The final texture was perfectly cakey, and the flavor was fantastic.  This was wildly successful.

Disaster Index: 1/10