Challah

[Mike Nolan]

Aaron, I've been thinking of giving your challah recipe a try, as I've never had one done with apple cider. I assume you use fresh apple cider that hasn't been dosed with preservatives.

I've taken the liberty of entering your formula into my sizing/costing spreadsheet, though I am using canola oil rather than something like avocado oil, which would increase the cost significantly. (I might try grapeseed oil, though.)

The Excel spreadsheet is attached. I sized it for two loaves scaled at 24 ounces each but those settings are easy to revise.

challah

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[aaronatthedoublef]

Thanks Mike. I will look at this when I am back home. We're in Evanston for a college tour for my middle.

I've started boiling my cider because it gives it a rounder flavor.

And my cider has one ingredient: apples!

[Mike Nolan]

Looking at Northwestern? I met my wife there! I was a techie, she was a technical theatre major (lighting, scenery, costume design.)

Our granddaughter is a junior this year and I don't know what her college plans are. She's been talking about studying in Germany with a friend who has lived there on and off for several years.

[aaronatthedoublef]

Thanks for the challah costing. Looking at it my bread is way less expensive than I thought and when I start buying less expensive flour that should help A LOT. I could switch from avocado oil to canola as avocado oil is about three times the cost but I like it better now than canola so I may see if I can find a less expensive source than Costco.

It was a perfect day for Northwestern: sunny and in the low 70s with a nice breeze. Our tour guide spent at least half the time talking to us in front of the beach. Smart kid! And our tour guide was from West Hartford and went to high school with my oldest and knew him well so it was a good connection.

We stayed with my brother who put on a big push to have his nephew close by and he is the uncle who live farther away in Wilmette. My other brother is walking distance to Northwestern and Henry likes the idea of family being close by. Henry is also a pretty talented singer and wants to pursue that in addition to engineering in college and of all the schools he is looking at Nwestern has the best mix of STEM and performing arts.

[Mike Nolan]

As you may know, I run sites for both Northwestern and Nebraska sports fans. (See https://nu-sports.tssi.com for the Northwestern site.)

A while back someone asked what the biggest difference was between the schools.

One answer was that at Nebraska they close the library at 5PM on Friday on football weekends. At Northwestern they keep it open 24 hours a day on football weekends. (Not sure if that policy survived COVID, though.)

The last time I was on campus I barely recognized the place, there have been so many new buildings put up since I graduated in 1972. Our younger son applied there, but didn't get in. Because of the surge of applicants, their acceptance rate is really low, around 8-10% these days.

[aaronatthedoublef]

Mike,

Did you try my recipe. I love your spreadsheet. It turns out my challah is much less expensive than I thought. Thanks again!

Also, I haven't noted it in my recipe yet but right now I am using boiled cider. I am boiling my own and I boil about 1/3 of it away. I like the flavor better. I boil my own not because it will save money but because I can experiment with different ciders to see which works best. If I buy it from KAB (the only place I have seen it) I am limited to what they sell. We have so many small farms selling cider and they are not all the same. On Rosh Hashanah we went apple picking at a new place and I really like this orchard. But they're cider is a little weak so I can by from the other place I drive by every week on my volunteer day.

They've started to also make cider from apple mixes or specific apples. So I can buy apple cider, gala cider, or honey crisp cider. The honey crisp carries a higher price and I am not sure it is worth it.

[Mike Nolan]

I think it'll be another week before we get the fruit fly population under control enough for me to do much baking, and I will need to get some apple cider, but it's the season for it.

The apple orchard I usually get winesaps at doesn't have any again this year. They suffered a lot of damage to their trees in a 2022 storm and the winesaps need at least another year. There might be some in Nebraska City, but that's 50 miles away and their u-pick hours are limited to weekends.

[aaronatthedoublef]

CT stopped our orchards from picking apples off the ground and pressing them.

But it's still legal in MA and NY so we have apple cider from those states that is less expensive.

All it did was make CT apple cider more expensive and annoy local growers.

But we still have plenty around.

[Mike Nolan]

Aaron, this is kind of an odd question, but if I make a challah recipe can I sell it as Challah even though I'm not Jewish?

[aaronatthedoublef]

Mike - My email is unstuck! Thanks

I don't know any laws - Jewish or civil - that says that challah must be baked by Jews. That may be different in Nebraska but not here. I worked in a bakery where the owner was Jewish but none of the bakers were until I started apprenticing there. They made challah every Thu/Fri overnight.

Now kosher is something different. It requires constant supervision of you, your recipe, your techniques, and your kitchen. For example, one of the reasons I originally switched to boiled cider was to keep cider taste but reduce the amount vs the rest of the liquid. If too much juice is used in relation to the rest of the liquids then it is cake not bread.

You would need a representative from koshering authority constantly in your kitchen. But anyone can make challah.

[aaronatthedoublef]

Mike - I'm wondering about some of your measurements in your recipe.

You make 24oz loaves to bake down to 16. I've been making 18oz loaves to get 16.

How many oz per egg do you use?

Thanks

[Mike Nolan]

I'm not sure I adjusted the post-baking weight in that spreadsheet, as I haven't made your recipe yet. 10-15% loss during baking is typical for most breads, though. I just set it at 24 ounces per loaf as a starting point because that's what I often bake for a simple three-strand braided loaf, though 18 ounces is also a good size, and I've made them as small as 9-12 ounces. If I do a two-layer celebration challah, I usually make around 32 ounces of dough.

[Mike Nolan]

Aaron, I went back and looked at the challah spreadsheet I posted on Sep. 21st, it doesn't have post-bake weight information (that's something I'm still experimenting with, along with a way to generate nutrition information).

I don't know where you got 16 ounces as the post-bake weight, unless that's something from an earlier post you made as your target weight. I used 24 ounces in part because that's what it was set to from the spreadsheet I used as the starting point for this one.

I wind up weighing my ingredients when I resize a recipe, including eggs.

The USDA says large eggs are supposed to average 2 ounces each in the shell, but they lose weight through evaporation over time. (That's why there's a bigger air cavity in an egg that you've had in the fridge for a couple of weeks.) I get 1.7 ounces of liquid from a large egg or slightly less.

[aaronatthedoublef]

Mike - thanks.

You have "package size" and its value is 1. I guess I thought it was one pound but looking at the cell now I realize it isn't.

I have my eggs at 47 grams which is a bit shy of 2oz.

[Mike Nolan]

The package size is another field I'm playing with, it is intended for things that are packaged in multiples, like a dozen cookies or rolls, so I can see the package ingredient cost. For breads it would usually be a 1.

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