Being a guest

this Shabbat means that my cooking load is much lighter this Friday. I made challah, and a bonus challah roll that I shared with my sons  right after the challah was baked.

Eating bread right out of the oven is a great experience. The reality is though that the bread actually needs to be cooler to really taste all of the flavors in the bread. Eating the challah roll was amazing, but frankly, I have no idea what it actually tastes like. That will have to wait until after motzi.

As you can see I decided to line the baking pan with parchment paper again. There is a slight difference in the taste and texture of the bottom crust. If you oil the baking pan then the bottom crust is extra crispy and is slightly enhanced by the oil. On the other hand, I do appreciate not having to scrub the pan quite so hard.

Our hostess has a weakness for my meringues, or as they are known in this household, whities. So I made a batch. I committed a baking sin in baking the whities.

A bit of egg yolk got into the whites. Supposedly, that means that they egg whites won’t fluff up properly. I guess these  particular egg whites didn’t get the memo and beat up wonderfully. My big problem at the moment is figuring out how to transport the whities.

 

I also baked two ho-breads. In regular English I suppose you could call these peasant boules. I made them with come partially cooked wheat berries. here they are just before baking.

And here they are in their post-baked glory.

Why do we call them ho- breads? Because Rubin’s Delicatessen in Brookline used to sell “ho-made soup”. the term completely confused me when I was a kid. When I started making peasant bread my kids asked me what sort of bread it was…I told them it was ho-made. The liked the double entendre. So now whoever bakes the bread is the Ho. Today I am the Ho.

Today’s crazy thaw is creating havoc in my own personal weather system in my face and my sinuses are going nuts. I’m still working on solving the atara problem. I have ideas….

 

 

 

Shabbat Shalom!