Challah, light

It looks prettier when not viewed through a camera phone.  I left my camera in my work bag.  DAMN.

Cooking Light is an interesting magazine.  I grew up reading my mom's subscription, and its recipes were identifiable for the many "shortcuts" they used to achieve full-ish flavor from light and fat free ingredients.  Yogurt instead of sour cream; milk/buttermilk instead of cream; applesauce subbed for oil in baked goods; and all of those fat-free and low-fat bastardized versions of the real thing.

But those things give me the heebie jeebies.  What, pray tell, are you eating when you eat fat-free butter?  What homogenized chemicals must be processed indefinitely to produce something like that? Certainly, not all reduced fat items are bad, and some I actually like just as much as the regular version (neuftachel cheese, 2% greek yogurt), but still...fat-free cream cheese?  What are you actually eating?

A kitchen scale makes baking so much easier.

Recently, though, Cooking Light has somewhat changed its ethos away from "fake-out" cooking towards a more moderate approach.  Instead of turkey bacon, their recipes will now use regular bacon - just sparingly, and in consideration of what's in teh rest of the meal too.  Likewise, trans-fat filled margarine now cedes its place in the ingredient list to real butter, just again with a thought to what else you're eating and what else is going in the dish.  Cooking Light is a great source - and inspiration - when trying to eat healthier without feeling like you only eat salads.  Plus, their recipes are generally good.  Yeah, some taste like health food, but most are easy, and they work.  This is important.

Love the action shot of my gorgeous KitchenAid....

Their Thanksgiving 2010 issue features a great cache of lightened-up and updated holiday recipes, including one for a Fontina and Chive Challah bread.  Challah is, I'm told, a traditional Jewish bread enriched with butter and eggs, somewhat like Brioche. It is usually braided into a loaf and brushed with egg wash to help the top bake up with a deep golden brown crust.  I know it  from deli counters and countless grilled cheeses - something about the eggy, buttery bread with its crusty top layer just welcomes toasting, sandwiching, and endless extra bites.

I had planned to make soup for dinner that night, but needed something to go alongside, hopefully something to dip into the brothy bottoms of the soup bowl.  Although I lacked fontina, I decided to give this challah a go, albeit a plain version, halving the recipe as well to prevent the inevitable eating of two loaves of bread before they go stale.

Sorry about the camera phone shot...

The recipe called for a few eggs, a few yolks, and very specific amounts of two kinds of flour.  But, since it required three separate rises, and I wanted to make it in one day, I woke up early to start mixing the dough.  As a result, my math (and reading) skills weren't quite up to par at that daybreaking hour, so I sorta "winged" the amounts.  I'm pretty sure I used too many eggs, and not enough flour, so the recipe below is definitely not the same in its exactness as the original.  Cooking Light claims each slice (counting 12 per loaf) has but 160 calories and 4 grams of fat, which compared to brioche (have you ever READ the ingredient list?) is light indeed.  And without the cheese, this version is even better.  So all that butter I slathered all over the top of my slices is totally negated, right?  Right.....






Lightened-up Challah


1 tsp rapid-rise yeast
1 tsp sugar
1/2 cup buttermilk (or reg. milk w/ 1/2 tsp white vinegar), warmed
1 tsp salt
1 Tbsp melted butter
2 egg yolks (reserve the egg whites for the egg wash)
2 eggs
13 oz  all-purpose flour (about 2 3/4 cups)




Mix yeast, sugar and warmed buttermilk in a large bowl (preferably the one to your stand mixer); let stand until foamy.  Add in salt, butter, yolks, and eggs; stir to combine.  (If so desired, stir in 1/2 cup shredded fontina or swiss and 1/4 cup chopped chives here.)


Using the mixer's dough hook, add the flour to the egg mixture and run machine until a smooth, elastic dough forms.  Add a few tablespoons flour, one at a time, during the kneading process if dough seems overly wet (it should be fairly sticky).  Turn onto a floured countertop and hand-knead for a minute or so to ensure that dough is smooth, then form dough into a ball by pulling ends under and pinching them together.


Place dough into a large bowl, coat with olive oil or cooking spray, then cover with plastic wrap and allow to rise in a warm, draft-free spot for about an hour or until doubled in size. Punch dough down, recover, and allow to rise again, another hour or so (or put the bowl into the fridge until you need the dough, letting it cold rise for the second part.  Just take the dough out of the fridge about 30 minutes before proceeding with the next step).


Punch dough down, then divide into three equal balls.  Roll each ball into a 15" long rope.  Lay ropes side by side and braid them together (like braiding hair), pinching the ends together and turning the ends under the loaf.  Place braided loaf on a parchment-lined baking sheet, cover with a tea towel and allow to rise for another 30 minutes.


Preheat oven to 375 degrees.  Mix reserved egg white with 1 Tbsp water.  Brush over the tops of loaves (at this point, you can also sprinkle the tops of the loaves with anything you have on hand - salt, parmesan cheese, sesame seeds, poppyseeds, etc).  Bake loaf on parchment-lined sheet about 20 to 25 minutes or until very well browned.  Cool on a wire rack, slice and serve.