Water Challah: Maggie Glezer’s Lithuanian Challah

My husband wanted a less sweet and much chewier challah than the ABin5 challah, so I made a batch of Lithuanian Challah from Maggie Glezer’s book A Blessing of Bread.

Despite being a water challah (i.e., no eggs in the dough), the crumb was not pure white, but more of a creamy color. I realize that in the below picture, the crumb does look white, but–trust me–it was not as white as the crumb of bakery water challah. Of course, that could be related to the bakery using different flour or longer mixing times or more powerful mixing equipment.

Anyway, the recipe yielded a lot of cute little 8 ounce challahs:

I baked some of them as single strand twisted oval rolls, some were baked in mini loaf pans (the Lithuanian challah is traditionally made in pans, says Glezer),and some I baked in similarly sized oval challah pans.

If you want a higher rising challah, oval pans give you a very nice shape.

The stores here now sell disposable oval pans, but a while ago I bought a range of oval pans from Kerekes. Lots of other places carry them.

This challah dough is good for making pletzel .

A couple of other points: this bread is baked at a much higher temperature than her other challah (425-450 degrees), which I like much better. I like a deeply browned crust. Also, this recipe can be adapted to make a sourdough challah (see page 120).

Bottom line: my husband loved this challah and also loved the French toast I made with leftovers.

I’m sending this over to YeastSpotting.

Tags: bread, challah, Lithuanian Challah, Water Challah, yeastspotting