Food Friday- Happy Challah Day edition

 We switched our house back to Chametz-mode last Saturday night, so today is our first post-Pesach challah.

It felt wonderful getting back to the really pleasurable job of kneading challah.

Today, my Facebook feed was filled with photos of Schlissel challot.  A Schlissel challah is a custom to bake challah in the shape of a key to help open the gates of heaven on the Shabbat after Pesach. Or more properly, it is a Slavic Easter bread tradition to bake a loaf of bread in the shape of St. Peter's key. Just as I don't put a conifer in my house at Chanukah time to say, symbolize the wooden posts installed at the rededication of the Temple I don't bake such an iconographically Christian challah. So sorry folks, no Schlissel challah here. 

I made a batch of two stranded challot. I made eight small challot rather than four big ones because it is just the two of us eating.

Here is a visual on how to make two stranded challot.

Roll out one strand of dough. I had rolled the dough into a rectangular sheet and then rolled it up. That is a nice refinement that improves the texture of the dough. If you aren't feeling fussy you can just pull and roll the dough into a fat snake

Cut the strand in half so you now have two strands of dough.

Cross the two strands

Here are my completed challot

Here is the previously homely challah.

It's even nice enough to serve to company. No, no company this week. I am actually kind of worn out by my Passover cooking adventures.  I pulled the last of the chickens I had cooked for the holiday out of the freezer. I was relieved because I had lots of work to do.

The next several weeks are busy, busy, busy for me.

 

Fold one strand over the other and then start to braid the loaf by picking up the left-most strand and weaving it over and under all of the other strands until you get to the right. Go back and pick up the rightmost strand and repeat. Keep going until you use up all of the strands.

Here is the completed braided loaf. it is a bit homely but it will look fine after being baked.