August 14, 2008 - 5:15am
Reinhart transitional whole-wheat challah
Has anyone made either of the wholewheat challah recipes from Reinhart's wholegrain (epoxy) cookbook? I'm interested in making some dough up today for tomorrow. My husband is very resistant to the idea of wholewheat challah - I made the recipe a year ago from the King Arthur whole grain cookbook. I'll probably start with the transitional recipe, but I'd love to hear from anyone who has experience with whole grain challah. Thanks!
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I made the 100% whole wheat challah a few weeks ago. I thought it was quite good: extremely soft, and rich but still suitable for sandwiches. I would probably call it one of the top three or so "normal" breads I've made ("normal" meaning not sourdough, not rye, no strong herbs or exotic grains, etc -- basically, a typical daily bread).
Then again, I make almost exclusively 100% whole grain breads, so I may have a different viewpoint than your husband.
Thanks so much. I think the recipe will actually be richer than my normal one. I normally use Maggie Glezer's Chernowitzer recipe, and it doesn't have that many eggs, but does have some oil in it. My "normal" breads are whole grain, but challah for Fridays, for him, means white flour (traditional). I am tempted to try the transitional. I liked the King Arthur transitional challah quite a bit... I'm wondering if any typical "Friday" bakers have switched exclusively to a whole-grain challah. If you have, how did your families react to the transition?
I've been making this recipe w/100% home-ground for awhile now as my daily sandwich bread. If you can, try to find whole wheat that was made from a White wheat rather than Red. I think it's a much better taste for the Challah than when I've used red.
Well I'm a typical "Friday" baker. :) However, since I'm not Ashkenazi I don't bake Challah on Fridays. I just bake regular bread along with a regular cake recipe. The cake is my breakfast on Sabbath morning and the bread is .... well bread. :)
Rudy
For those who don't own Reinhart's book, you can find the complete recipe at this link...
www.101cookbooks.com/archives/challah-bread-recipe.html
This blog post, dated August 12, 2007, gives the ingredients and complete instructions.
Here's a photo of the finished loaf from the blog