Fall Friday breakfast: French toast and hot cocoa

You don't need me to tell you that French toast made out of chala leftovers is awesome. What I will add, though, is that Israeli date syrup makes a fine maple syrup substitute. On this occasion, we didn't even have that, so I resorted to spreading a thin layer of raspberry jam and coating with some fresh real whipped cream.

To adapt a joke from P&R, it wasn't really that amazing, OH WAIT IT SUPER WAS.

The hot cocoa was a recipe, again, from Jeffrey Steingarten. It's basically half a chocolate bar shaved down and stirred into boiling milk, along with some cocoa powder and sugar. I'd never have thought of adding cocoa powder, but it retrospect it seems so obvious. The other step I wouldn't have thought of is to stick blend the cocoa for a few minutes at the end to really emulsify everything, and give the cocoa a rich foam on top.

Honey Whole Wheat Challah

In the spirit of experimentation I tried a new challah recipe this week. Last time I baked challah I was informed that I could just use the mixer to knead the dough instead of doing it with my hands. Thinking that this would make my life so much easier, I began the recipe with high hopes.

After kneading the dough for awhile with the machine, the dough was still very sticky and appeared unaffected by the efforts. I assumed the dough would clump up around the dough hook and basically pull away from the edge of the bowl. It didn't do this and so I kept adding flour in the hopes that it would. After awhile, about 15 minutes or so and at least a few extra cups of flour, I decided the dough (and I) had had enough. I managed to get it out of the bowl and into a clean and oiled bowl for rising. Turns out it was OK and the kneading seemingly worked but in the process I had become a bit frustrated. I used about a kilo of flour in total. What was I doing wrong?

I discussed this with my husband, the food scientist. He explained that measuring flour in cups is highly inaccurate (since you could fill up a cup of flour, press it down firmly and then add a lot more) and a better, more accurate, way to measure out flour is by weight (in grams). In the future I'll look for a recipe that measures out the flour in grams, which works out well for me since I love using our food scale. (It appeals to my detail oriented and exacting nature.)

Here is the recipe I used. A couple modifications; I used instant yeast so I didn't have to bother letting it stand for 10 minutes. I also used 1/2 cup of honey (date honey) instead of 1/3 cup - to emphasize the sweetness a bit more. Lastly, I tried a four strand braid - watch this video tutorial for instructions.

Lesson learned: measure your flour by weight. Questions: How easy is it to come up with your own bread/challah recipe? Is this one of those things that takes a lot of trial and error that I won't have the patience for? Maybe I should let others pave the way and just benefit from their hard work. Or I can let the food scientist in the house figure it out for me....

Easy Stuffing

This stuffing has a similar theme to the pie crust and the french toast (making something with "leftovers"). It sounds less appetizing than it really is. I should come up with another name for that. In the meantime, what do you do with (a lot) of "extra" chala? 1. Freeze it right away so it doesn't go bad. 2. Make stuffing.

Stuffing is delicious and requires only a few simple steps.

Ingredients:

Bread, lightly toasted, broken into small pieces (1/2-2/3 of a medium loaf)

2 cups of water with soup mix (my directions say 1 teaspoon mix per cup water)

12 oz. mushrooms

1 onion

3-4 cloves of garlic

2-3 celery stalks

1 medium sized carrot

The amounts are approximated but the idea is there. Saute all the vegetables together, making sure to dice the onions, celery, carrots and garlic pretty small. Add a bit of pepper. Add the soup mix water to the bread and stir so it's evenly distributed. Add the sauteed vegetables to the bread. Mix well. Pour into pyrex, aluminum tin, or corningware and bake at 350 F for approximately 40 minutes or until it starts to brown on top.

Chahlizz

After Yoni and I decided we were making aliyah we had to figure out which appliances we would take with us, which we'd leave and which we wanted to replace. The KitchenAid was at the top of the list to replace and take with us. We went to this tiny store somewhere near The Village that we knew sold 220V appliances. While we were paying for it the check out lady started making conversation, asking us where we were going... etc. At some point she turns to me and said, "so you gon make chahlizz?" I must have looked confused (either because I didn't understand the actual words that she was saying or because I was baffled by the concept) so she repeated herself a couple times. Finally I turned to Yoni with a look that said, "Do you understand her?" He said "Yea, she's asking if you're going to make chala". We both smiled at each other knowing the real truth behind who would be making the chahlizz in our house.... and yet, almost a year later here I am, making chahlizz.

I promise to not get ahead of myself and start believing this will actually become a regular occurrence. But the fact that my very first time baking challot (yes, let's pronounce it so I can understand) was successful.... is very encouraging.

Thanks to my sister for the recipe (originally found in the Beth Hamedrosh Cookbook) and for coaching me through the tough times.

Here's the recipe I used:

1 T salt
1/2 cup sugar
2 cup warm water
2 packages yeast (each package is 2 and 1/4 tsp)
2 eggs
1/2 cup oil
7-7 1/2 cups flour

Combine all ingredients in order given. Knead, let it rise in oiled bowl for 1.5 hours. Punch down and let rise for another .5 hr. Shape and let rise another .5 hour. Bake at 400 F (204 C) for 20 minutes.