Would ya Challah?

A few months back, we decided to save some money and have dinner at home instead of go to my favorite restaurant in Worcester Pho Dakao on friday. Since friday is shabbat, we decided it would be nice to make Challah.

I've been using this recipe http://allrecipes.com/recipe/challah-i/. It works well and is tasty. Instead of 8 cups, I usually do 6 cups and reduce the water to 2 cups. The full 8 cups make a huge challah that barely fits in the oven. This time my daughter decided to make 2 loafs. One round and the other 4 strand braid.

Vanilla Turmeric Loaf

Last nite I had a crazy idea to make a loaf with turmeric.

3 cups all purpose flour
1 cup white whole what
1 tsp salt
1 tsp sugar
1/2 tsp yeast
1/2 tsp vanilla
1/2 tsp turmeric
2 eggs
1.5 cups warm water
2 tbsp butter
2 tbsp oil

It is hard to describe the taste, but it is wonderful. There's a slight hint of vanilla and turmeric. The crumb is a lovely shade of yellow from the turmeric.

Perhaps some orange with it?

I started a currant lime loaf tonight for breakfast tomorrow. That got me thinking again about other flavor combinations that might be different and savory. For some reason I thought of orange, since I don't usually eat breads with orange. A quick search on google turned up some results like this one.

orange ginger quick bread
orange tube bread

That got me thinking about orange chicken, which is a very popular chinese dish 陳皮雞. In chinese, it means "old peal chicken." For the bread, I'm thinking of adapting the flavors a bit. Ginger, vinegar, garlic, shaoxing rice wine and orange are the dominant flavors in the dish. For the bread, I'm thinking of combining

Orange juice
ginger
shaoxing rice wine
teaspoon sugar
teaspon of vinegar
garlic

It sounds crazy enough to taste really good, or really bad. I won't know until I try it, but it should be interesting either way.

Lime Currant Loaf

The previous currant loaf I used store bought lemon rind, which worked fine. This time I decided to juice half a lime and see how it tastes. Happily, it is better than lemon rind. In general, I prefer the flavor of lime to lemon, so I'm biased.

2.5 cups all purpose flour
1 cup white whole wheat
1/2 lime juiced
1 teaspoon salt
1 cup currants
1/2 teaspoon yeast
1.5-2 cups warm water

Like the regular no knead recipe, combine the ingredients and mix until you have a wet dough. For me, that took about 2 cups of water. Let the dough rise for 12-14 hours. Preheat the dutch oven at 550F. Shape the dough into a loaf and let it rise for 1 hour.

Bake covered at 500 for 30 minutes. Bake 4-15 minutes uncovered depending on how crusty you like your bread. The kids like a soft crust, so I do 4 minutes.