First time posting anything, hopefully I get all the syntax right, not quite sure how image embeds work.
I made a comment the other day saying I'd do some kinda post if I remembered to take pics while baking, so I'm putting my food where my mouth is. I'm making 3 loaves of challah for a wedding reception this weekend, but also needed one for someone else today so I got all the dough prepped and used a quarter of it. The base of the recipe is from here but honestly their measurements are wack! I cut everything in half and still wind up with 4 loaves, so that author must be making them HUGE, idk. I've also made my own alterations since I've made it so many times, so here's what I used today (I can see other posters are using weights but I didn't think about getting those at the time, sorry, maybe if I post again):
3 tablespoons yeast (you could probably get away with a bit less)
2 cups warm water (I usually go pretty light on the water and make up for it with a 1/4 cup or so of honey but I forgor)
1 tablespoon salt
1/4 cup white sugar
1 stick of butter, melted
2 eggs
6 cups bread flour, or as needed
For the egg wash thoroughly whisk 1 egg and a teaspoon vanilla extract. I also think it's a little easier to brush on if you add like a 1/4 teaspoon of water, maybe less, but that's no big deal.
And you'll want enough sesame seeds to coat that sucker.
Anyway, I'm pretty loose with how I throw everything together. The recipe I linked is very specific about sprinkling yeast over water, stirring it, then slowly mixing in flour, yadda yadda... I have found that for the vast majority of bread recipes, all that nonsense is just fluff. Put the yeast and sugar in a measuring cup, add warm water to the right level, and it mixes itself! If you wind up needing more water (I never do, usually I actually need more flour) you can always slowly add it while kneading. And while the yeast is proofing, mix your dry ingredients in a bowl.
Mise en place!
Then just mix while pouring the wet over the dry. I went ahead and put the eggs in with the wet stuff too.
This is after letting the mixer knead for 10 minutes, but even though it was pulling away from the sides of the bowl , it didn't look like it was quite the right consistency. Usually it balls up a bit more around the hook. So I added another 1/4 cup of flour and let it go another 5 minutes. Much better, maybe still could have used a little more flour, but the mixer was starting to get warm so I decided it was good enough.
Weighed the dough at about 1820g, so I split off about 455g and that makes for a decently hefty loaf (again, no idea wtf is up with the original claiming to make only 4 loaves with double the ingredients). Then split that 455g into thirds and rolled them out into logs. Maybe I'm showing my ass a little too much with my lack of perfectionism, but the only important thing about the logs is that they are even enough to easily braid. Any bumps or folds will smooth themselves out as the dough rises.
Glue the ends by dabbing a tiny bit of water on with your fingers, tuck that under, and then you make your braids.
For letting the bread rise, I turn my oven on its lowest setting for about 60 seconds, then turn it off and pop the dough in. The original recipe says to wait for an hour, but with this method the dough doubles in size in just 30 mins. For extra credit you could also add a wet towel or a tray of warm water to keep everything moist, but I don't usually bother with that unless I'm doing something like a baguette.
Once it's doubled, take it out, gently brush on your egg wash, douse with sesame seeds, forget to take any pics of that part, and then bake at 350F for 30 mins. There she is!
Unfortunately no cross section pics since I made this for someone else, but they expressed satisfaction with the result :)
