Dec 16, 2019 — Our occasional holiday series, "Bread Time Stories," continues with a tale from Ellen Rocco, former NCPR station manager. When she first moved to the North Country from Manhattan, she had a hard time finding good bread. So, she learned to take matters into her own hands.
Ellen Rocco's home baked challah. Photo: Ellen Rocco
According to Ellen: "When I started making challah almost 50 years ago, I experimented until I created a bread that resembled the challah I had eaten growing up in NYC. Likewise, I took challah dough to recreate babka as I remembered it. This version uses vegetable oil and water (rather than butter and milk), which makes it acceptable to eat with both dairy and meat meals, according to Kosher law. There are many ways to make both challah and babka. This is my way."
Ingredients for 4 large loaves (this may be halved, but extra bread freezes well—and challah makes the BEST French toast)
- Dry yeast (fast or regular action both work just fine) 4 tablespoons or 4 packages
- Warm water—4-1/2 cups
- Vegetable oil (I use corn oil)—8 tablespoons + additional as needed to oil bowl and pans
- Salt—8 teaspoons
- Sugar—8 tablespoons
- Eggs—10 large for dough, plus 2 for crust (do not put these 2 into dough mixture)
- Flour—About 4-5 lbs all-purpose, unbleached white flour
- Poppy seed—About 2 tablespoons (optional—strictly decorative)
Process
You will need two cookie sheets, a very large bowl, and a dry surface for kneading.
In the large bowl, dissolve yeast in warm water. Let it work for a couple of minutes. Stir in all other ingredients, except flour and poppy seed. Now, stir in flour a couple of cups at a time until you have a soft, slightly sticky dough. Turn out on floured surface and use flour to move the dough out of the bowl. Do not wash the bowl. Knead dough, adding just enough flour to keep dough from sticking too much to your hands. Do not over-knead. A couple of minutes is plenty.
Pour enough oil in bowl to coat thoroughly, dump dough back into bowl and flip the dough so the top is oiled, too. Cover with a clean cloth and let rise for about an hour. Your dough will increase significantly in size over this time. Punch down and turn dough back onto floured surface. Knead briefly, then divide into four equal pieces. Divide the first piece into three pieces and roll each piece between your hands to create a roll. Overlap them at the center and braid outward to ends. Pinch ends together. Place two braided challahs on each of the greased cookie sheets. Beat the 2 reserved eggs and use a pastry brush or your hands to completely coat each loaf. Sprinkle with poppy seed.
Pre-heat oven to 340F. By the time your oven comes to temperature, your loaves should be rising and just about ready to place in oven. It is better to put bread in oven too soon rather than letting them over-proof. About 20 minutes into baking, turn cookie sheets around in oven and switch bottom sheet to top, and top to bottom. Continue baking for another 20 minutes…or so. Breads should be a rich golden brown and the underside should be absolutely firm. When done, cool on cookie sheets.
Ellen's babka (left) and challah. Photo: Ellen Rocco
Making babka with challah dough
This is strictly my method. I suspect you’ll find very different guidance online or in cookbooks, but I like these two ways for making babka—each has a different feel. Regardless of how you approach the babka, you will need ¼ of the challah dough described above (this means you’ll have three regular challah loaves and one babka). You may want to put two challah loaves on a cookie sheet and one loaf in a round cake pan. Just take braided loaf and pinch the two ends together to create a circular loaf.
Ingredients for babka
- Challah dough—1/4 of 4-loaf challah dough recipe
- Semi-sweet baking chocolate—6 ounces
- Butter—1 stick (1/4 pound) for recipe, plus ½ stick melted separately
- Granulated sugar—1/4 cup
- Vanilla extract—1 teaspoon
- Cinnamon—1/2 teaspoon
- Walnut pieces—1 cup (optional)
- Powdered sugar—enough to decorate (optional)
Alternative flavoring:: Use almond extract, the zest from one orange, and sliced almonds
Process for babka
I make babka in either a bundt pan or a bread pan. In either case, you’ll want to melt the chocolate, butter, sugar and vanilla/cinnamon (or almond/orange) in a double boiler. Do this while the dough is rising so it cools off a bit before being incorporated into babka. Babka, like challah, is baked at 340F—I always make them together.
Bundt pan approach: thoroughly grease pan with separately melted butter (save any excess to drizzle over baked babka). Now, take enough dough to cover bottom or babka pan, pulling it around to form a tube or filling in bottom of pan with small lumps of dough. Pour about ½ of the chocolate mixture directly onto the dough, sprinkle with half of the nuts, and repeat to use up remaining dough and chocolate mixture. Let rise for about 15 minutes. Bake for about 40 minutes and turn onto rack to cool. Once the babka is cool, slide onto a platter, drizzle with butter and any chocolate you can scrape from the bundt pan, and sift a bit of decorate powdered sugar onto the top.
Loaf pan approach: thoroughly grease pan with separately melted butter. Roll out dough into a long, narrow rectangle. Spread generously with as much chocolate as you can fit on dough, sprinkle with about 2/3 of the nuts, and then roll up from the narrow end to create a loaf. Place edge side down in loaf pan, top with remaining chocolate and nuts, let rise for about 15 minutes, and bake for about 40 minutes. Cool on rack. Sprinkle with sifted powdered sugar.
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