Challah-Two Ways

Hey everyone! I've been making the Artisan Bread In Five Minutes A Day dough for years and can't recommend the first book enough! While I mostly make light wheat *boules (adding some Herbs de Provence is wonderful!), I do enjoy their Challah at Easter. The boule recipe was very easy to cut in half or even fourths for one loaf (which I do often), but the Challah could only be cut in half, so that gives me two loaves of bread to play with. King Arthur Flour posted the Challah recipe here.

I like to braid a loaf for Easter dinner and tuck in died eggs or add poppy seeds if I have them-

this year I just made it with an egg wash...  

I tried something totally new with the second loaf:

1. Rolled it out into a rectangle, brushed it with melted butter and sprinkled it with cinnamon, sugar and some raisins. 
2. I did need to use my bench scraper to help roll it up because the dough got a little too soft, but it wasn't difficult. Note to self: if I had rolled it out on a silicone mat I could have placed it back in the fridge to firm up before rolling up.
3. Then tucked the ends under and placed it into an 8.5x4.5 bread pan. 
4. At this point I covered it with plastic wrap and froze it. 
5. Wanted to bake it on Saturday morning so I took it out of the freezer Friday after work and placed it in the fridge. 
6. Took it out of the fridge Saturday morning and let it rise for 1 hour 40 minutes PLUS 1 hour more because it was so cold. Basically I waited until it rose enough to be more than double and fill about 3/4 of the pan.
7. Then baked it for 30 minutes at 350 degrees. 

*squawk-fizzle-static*..."Houston, we have a blow out"... While the shape of this particular loaf may not be the "right stuff" (oh yea, still cracking myself up here folks) this is a very tasty bread! For some reason I think a turkey sandwich would be really good on raisin bread-gonna find out:@)

Note: *While I encourage you to try the breads in this book, I use the "covered dutch oven" method of baking instead of the "tossing water into a pan in the hot oven" method for the boules. I've read too many stories of the glass window in ovens breaking... I place my cast iron dutch oven in the oven while preheating, carefully take it out, add my dough that's been resting on parchment paper, cover it with the lid, put it into the oven for 15 minutes, remove the lid, finish baking for another 15 minutes-works great!

Have a happy day!