• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

Cover and let rise in a warm place, being careful not to let the dough go longer than necessary each time. This is quite important. After about an hour and a half, gently poke the center of the dough about ½ inch deep with your wet finger. If the hole doesn’t fill in at all or if the dough sighs, it is ready for the next step. Press flat, form into a smooth round, and let the dough rise once more as before. The second rising will take about half as much time as the first.

Press the dough flat and divide in two. Round it and let it rest until relaxed, then deflate and shape into loaves. Place in greased 8″ 4″ loaf pans and let rise in a warm, draft-free place until the dough slowly returns a gently made fingerprint.

Place in preheated oven and bake at 325°F 40 minutes or so, until done. This bread makes delightful rolls; make any fancy shape, or cloverleaf rolls with poppy seeds. You can also just divide one loaf into 12 rounds and fill the greased cups of a muffin tin. Give them a full proof, and bake about 15 minutes at 425°F (or longer at 325°F along with the bread). Brush with butter.

Eggs

Eggs add protein and make the bread richer and higher-rising. Since bread with egg tends to dry out rapidly, most recipes call for extra fat to counteract this. Often, too, for greater tenderness the sweetener is increased; and if you use a lot of egg, more salt is needed to keep the bread from being too bland.

Adding eggs to whole wheat, we think, does make a bread rather less interesting in flavor, and so when we include them, it is most often in recipes that get their sparkle from some other source (raisins, for example). Relatively simple egg breads like Vienna or Challah draw their elegance from their baker’s careful attention to making a flavor-rich crust. Vienna bread is baked hot with plenty of steam at the outset; Challah is “washed;” both are shaped to increase the amount of crust surface and thereby enhance the flavor of the loaf.

Whole Wheat Egg Bread

6 cups finely ground whole wheat flour (900 g)

1 tablespoon salt (16.5 g)

2 teaspoons active dry yeast (¼ oz or 7 g)

½ cup warm water (120 ml)

4 eggs, plus water to make 2 ¾ cups (650 ml)

¼ cup oil (60 ml)

3 tablespoons honey (45 ml)

1 egg for glazing, and poppy or sesame seeds if desired.

Whole grain flour produces bread of an earthier mood than the white flour with which Challah is usually made. The recipe is therefore not an exact translation, but it is as authentic as we could make it—and very good. Some people like to add raisins; if you are one of them, use about 1 cup per recipe. Steam the raisins to soften them, then cool; work gently into the dough toward the end of the kneading period.

Stir the flour and salt together in a bowl. Make a well in the center.

Dissolve the yeast in the warm water, and set it aside while you mix the other liquids.

Break the eggs into a quart measuring cup. Add enough tepid water to make 2 ¾ cups; then add the oil and honey, and beat until smooth. Add this mixture and the yeast to the well in the flour, and stir together. Knead the dough until it is silky and supple, adding water by wetting your hands, as necessary. The dough should be soft, but not flabby; the important thing is the kneading: for the very best and highest bread, an efficient kneader will require about 20 minutes to develop the dough to its springiest.

Form the dough into a ball and place it smooth side up in the bowl. Cover and keep in a warm, draft-free place. After about an hour and a half, gently poke the center of the dough about ½ inch deep with your wet finger. If the hole doesn’t fill in at all, it is ready for the next step. Press flat, form into a smooth round, and let the dough rise once more as before. The second rising will take about half as much time as the first. Keep your eye on the dough, and don’t let it go so long that it sighs when you poke it. Egg-rich doughs like this benefit from a slightly shorter rising, particularly if you will be spending extra