(upbeat piano music begins) - Some bread recipes have a long history baked right in, like challah. It's revered not only for
its religious importance, but also for its flavor, its texture, the beautiful braids and twists. Now, Lan's here, and she's going to tell us all about her journey to
craft a loaf of challah that was respectful of history but approachable enough for the home cook. - I learned how to make challah by testing a couple recipes on my own, but also by going to the experts. Made a trip to Rosenfeld's
Bagels in Newton and there I met Mike Lombardo. He's the owner of the bakery and he and his crew make
hundreds of loaves a day. And what I learned was you need a dough that bakes up nice and tender and plush, but it needs to be firm enough that you can work with it while it's raw. - That's quite the balance you have there. - It is. It is. But we have a couple of tricks that we learned here in the test kitchen that we're gonna apply. And it starts with these ingredients. I've got three tablespoons
of bread flour here and I'm gonna add half a cup of water, whisk them together. And then I'm gonna cook this mixture in the microwave until
it becomes a thick paste. By cooking this mixture, I'm gonna stash that water in the flour. It'll be there to keep our bread nice and moist when it bakes up. But, the dough is gonna be
firm and really malleable. - Okay. - This technique is called tangzhong. So, I'm gonna cook this mixture until it becomes thick and pudding like, that takes 40 to 80 seconds. I'll stop every 20 to
give it a quick whisk so it cooks evenly. So, nice and thick. Clings to the whisk. I'm going to transfer it to
the bowl of our stand mixer. Since this is hot, I need to cool it down. - Okay. - And I'm gonna do it with some of our remaining ingredients. I've got one whole egg, and this is a large egg, two large egg yolks, quarter cup of water, two tablespoons of vegetable oil. And I'm just gonna whisk
everything together. Now, this does two things, it cools that tangzhong down so that it won't kill our yeast when we get it in, but it also loosens it up, which makes incorporating it into the rest of the ingredients a lot easier. - Otherwise you might have a little dumpling inside your bread. - Yeah, that would be no good. - Exactly. - So, last couple of ingredients. I've got some bread flour here. This is two and three quarters cups. One and a quarter
teaspoons of instant yeast. You could also use rapid rise here. - Okay. - Just pop this onto our stand mixer. This usually takes maybe
three or four minutes. I'm mixing on low and all I'm going for here is a nicely incorporated mixture. As long as all the flour is moistened, I don't have any dry spots or wet spots. We're good. I'm just gonna turn this off. We'll let this rest for 20 minutes. This rest, this autolyse will give the flour time to hydrate. It's been 20 minutes, time to get the last two ingredients in. I've got a quarter cup
of granulated sugar here and one teaspoon of table salt. Now, I'm going to turn this on and we'll need at medium speed until the gluten's fully developed. That usually takes nine minutes. - Okay. - That looks great. It's nice and elastic. It looks really smooth. I'm just gonna pull it off and we'll have a quick check. Gonna give this a quick spray because I'm gonna let the
dough rise in this bowl. No need to dirty anything else. - Nice. - I'm just gonna give this a quick knead to bring it together so it's nice and smooth. And you can see that you
don't need any flour. It's not sticking to anything. Right in the bowl. I really wanna make sure that the surface doesn't dry out. So, I'm gonna give it a quick spritz and cover with plastic. It's gonna rise until it's
about doubled in size. It's about one and a half hours depending on how warm your kitchen is and it's just gonna do its thing. - Okay. - Bridget, it has been an hour and a half. This dough has doubled in size. It's time to braid. - All right. - First thing, I'm gonna divide it into four equal pieces and I'm gonna do that by pressing it first into an eight inch square. And while I'm doing this I'm keeping an eye out for air bubbles. Something like that
will quadruple in size. And you'll end up with
a hole in your challah which we do not want. - No one wants a hole in their challah. - Nope. I am looking for an eight inch square. Great. So, now we're gonna
divide this first in half and then in half again to get four strips. - Okay. - I am making a four strand braid. I'm going to roll this into sixteen inch long ropes. And once I get it to sixteen inches I'm gonna extend it by another two, tapering the ends. I'm using this portion of my hands to just extend the ends a tiny bit until I get to 18. - Okay. - And the ends are nicely tapered and this will get me a
nicely shaped finished loaf. - Okay. - So I'm gonna repeat that
with the rest of my dough. Now, we get to the braid. - All right. - We're gonna actually make a plus sign with our strands and we're gonna let the tips overlap by about half an inch. Now, I think of this as kind of a clock. I'm gonna press this down so that that portion stays put and doesn't move around as we braid. You're gonna wanna take the twelve o'clock strand down to five. This six o'clock strand goes up to twelve. Nine to four. And three to eight. And that is our first set of braids. - And you end up with an octopus. - Almost. I will go ahead and neaten these so that they are perpendicular and parallel to me again. So, again, it's twelve to five, six to twelve, nine to four, and three to eight. Straighten. And one more time, down, up, over, over. And I'm gonna bring that down, tuck all of these ends together and give them a nice pinch. - Look how cute that is. - Tuck our ends underneath. And here's our challah. - Oh my goodness. - How great is that? - That was kind of unbelievable. - It's so simple. And it makes you feel like a pro because that's a
complicated looking braid. - It really is. - We'll just put this
onto a sheet of parchment that is on two rimmed baking sheets. The bottom of this loaf tends to brown a little bit too fast. By stacking my baking sheets, I'm creating a tiny gap of air that acts as an insulator. It slows down the browning of the bottom just enough. Last thing, I wanna cover it while it rises. That's going to help it rise more evenly. If I didn't cover it, the exterior would dry out and then you'd get some cracking. It wouldn't be very attractive. This is gonna double in size. And so you wanna make
sure the plastic wrap is draped really loosely over the top so that it doesn't hold the dough in place or mush it into weird shapes. - Okay. - But that's it. We're gonna let this hang for about three hours. (quick upbeat piano riff begins) Bridget, it's been three hours and you can see this has
expanded quite a lot. It's about doubled in size. - Exactly. That is beautiful before
it goes into the oven. - Yes, but it's gonna be even
better when it comes out. I'm gonna do a quick test to make sure that it is fully proofed
and ready to go in, gonna go in and gently
press with my knuckle. And what I want to see is that it springs back a little bit, but not all the way. - But not all the way. - I've got one egg here. I'm gonna add a pinch of salt, and just beat that together. And I really wanna take my time doing this to get into all the
little nooks and crannies. The egg wash portions are
really glossy and beautiful, and the un-egg washed portions
are a little bit matte. - Yeah. That's one of the hallmarks of a good challah, is it's that beautiful
lacquered appearance. - Yeah. It's just so appealing. But, you could also use this egg wash as a glue and sprinkle, say, a tablespoon of poppy seeds or sesame seeds right on top. If that's your jam. I think this looks pretty great. - You have done very well. - I'm gonna bake this in a 350 degree oven on the middle rack until
it is deeply brown. That takes 35 to 40 minutes. - Oh wow. - Right? Gorgeous. - Wow! Look at that. It is so beautiful. - It's got a beautiful
deep golden brown color. Only took maybe 35 minutes to get there. Just to be sure, I'm gonna take the
temperature of this bread. I'm looking for it to be
anywhere above 195 degrees. Bridget, nailed it! So, I'm gonna let this rest for about 20 minutes on this rack. It'll be just cool enough to handle. Then, I'll transfer it to the wire rack where it will cool the rest of the way. That takes about two hours. It's finally cooled. Let's dig in. - [Bridget] Oh, look at that crumb inside. - [Lan] I mean, it is so plush. - [Bridget] It's pillowy and tender. - [Lan] Oh, it smells so good too. Just a hint of sweetness. (moans in agreement) - There's beautiful
development in here though. The gluten and the structure. If you had used all purpose flour, you would've had a flat loaf. - Yeah. This will hold up to some custard, whether you're in a french toast or bread pudding, but it's not tough. (moaning no) - And it looks like you have a little different braid going on there. - Yeah. I couldn't stop with the braids and there's actually
a really simple method to create a round loaf. - You can get instructions
for that on our website. Thanks Lan. I am definitely going
to make this at home. - I can't wait to see yours. - [Bridget] So, if you wanna make this beautiful loaf of challah at home, cook a little water and flour together to make a paste, use our unconventional braiding method for a taller loaf, and bake the bread on two stacked baking sheets. So, from America's test kitchen an incredibly approachable yet velvety, tender, plush, easy braid challah. And delicious. - Thanks for watching
America's test kitchen. What'd you think? - Well, leave a comment and let us know which recipes you're excited to make or you can just say hello. - You can find links to today's recipes and reviews in the video description. - And don't forget to
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