Midaregami

At various times when I have put forth the effort to make this attractive, slightly sweet bread for public fuctions of one kind or another, I have often been informed by helpful parties that it is not in fact real challah, because it uses butter, and moreover it is not a “festive” or “festival” dish, as I had been initially told, because Jewish people blah blah blah—by this point I am typically done listening to their helpful advice.

So the food whose recipe and braiding procedure I am about to divulge is clearly not Challah—it is not Jewish, it is not for festivals or indeed events of any kind, it “cheats” and uses butter, and in all probability is not even bread.

But: it is gorgeous, and delicious. I am going to call it “shmallah.” It is a dish I have invented and of whose correctness I am sole arbiter. It is completely original, and is the traditional festival food of whenever I goddamn well feel like making it.

Here’s how to make shmallah—and anybody that tells you otherwise is a filthy liar, and although death is too good a punishment for their vile dissembling, death, nevertheless, is what they shall have.

Ingredients

• 1 Yeast cake (1 tablespoon Yeast)
• 1.5 cups warm milk
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 3 eggs (for bread)
• 1 egg (for glaze)
• 3/4 (0.75) cups sugar
• 3/4 (0.75) cups melted butter
• 5-6 cups flour

Instructions

Mix melted butter, warm milk, sugar, salt. This should be fairly hot.

Add 3 eggs. This should be warm but not hot. You’re going to be adding the yeast next, and if it’s too hot, you’ll kill the yeast, a mistake from which there can be no recovery. I’ve ruined or harmed many a batch of schmallah by killing or maiming the yeast via excessive heat—do not get hasty and make my mistake.

Now add the yeast.

Add 2 cups flour. Mix well, then let sit about 15 minutes. The goal here is to give the yeast a good, aggressive start, shortening your rising time somewhat.

Add 3.5 cups flour, then use the last half cup as you knead the dough. You may have to use a bit more flour than this; the dough should be a single lump that you can handle without it sticking to your hands. It may be very sticky when you begin to knead it; add flour gradually until you can handle the dough without it sticking to your hands. Knead it for 10 or so minutes after this point. Here’s what you wind up with.

Next, cut the dough into 4 pieces – each of these becomes a loaf.

To form a loaf, take one of the dough quarters and cut it into four equal pieces.

Roll each piece between your hands until you have a long, thin piece of dough, roughly 10 inches long:

Lay these parallel in front of you, then take the strand furthest from you, cross it over the next strand, under the third, and over the fourth, like so:

Then, you take the next strand, weave it over the third strand, under the fourth, and over the first:

Do likewise with the third strand, taking it over the fourth, under the first, and over the second—the pattern emerges:

You may need to tidy up the ends, but the method of doing so should be fairly clear by now, and you’ll wind up with something that looks like this:

Now tuck under each end of the braid, so you get an adorable little loaf that looks something like this:

Once you’re finished with all the loaves, put them on baking sheets and in the oven to rise.

Put these in a warm oven until they double in size—this can take two hours or more, so find some way to amuse yourself. Last time I made shmallah, I played Okami for a couple of hours. Make sure to turn the oven off, even if it’s just on warm. Too much heat will kill the yeast and you’ll wind up with half-risen loaves; nobody wants that.

When they’re done rising, they’ll look like this:

The thumbs-up means it’s awesome. Beat that last egg, and brush it liberally over each loaf; this is the glaze that makes schmallah so shiny and festive, and it can be tricky to see where you’ve missed a spot. It’s pretty much impossible to overdo the glaze, and one egg is more than enough to do each loaf, so go ahead and slather it on. Make sure to get the bottom edges—unglazed areas will be painfully obvious once the loaf is done baking. Also, preheat the oven to 325-350 degrees F.

Once glazed, sprinkle with poppy seeds, if you’re in the mood:

Now put ‘em in the oven, and bake for 20-25 minutes. They will rise a bit more, and be a gorgeous, dark golden brown when done.

Delicious. Have some fresh bread; once it’s cooled, I find schmallah to be most excellent when lightly toasted and buttered.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, December 19th, 2006 at 9:56 pm and is filed under Cooking. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.