Amy Cohen:
Hi, my name is Amy Cohen, and along with Talee Potter, I'm one of the two co-chairs, the two of us together make the co-chairs, of Brandeis Women's Network, and we want to thank you so much and thank Leah Silver so much for joining us today. Leah, when she's not baking challah for crowds of, we're up to 83 right now, I see, is an elementary math coordinator at the Grace Church School in Manhattan, and a 2012 graduate of Brandeis. Briefly, for those of you who don't know us, the Brandeis Women's Network is a pretty recently formed group where our purpose is to connect and support Brandeis women with each other. We want to develop those connections and be there for each other, both personally, professionally, and just in life in general. We all made some great friendships at Brandeis and we want to continue those and expand them.
Amy Cohen:
We have a calendar of events that is on our Facebook, Brandeis Women's Facebook page. If you're not a member, I encourage you to get on. You just search Brandeis Women, and then a request, and let us know your relationship, and we will bring you into our group, and you'll be able to see everything that we're doing and share.
Amy Cohen:
Couple housekeeping things. Everyone is going to start muted. If you have any questions, you can type them on the chat function. If Leah is not appearing large on your screen right now, but is in one of the small gallery spaces, if you take your clicker to the top right hand corner, you'll see three dots. If you click on those dots, you'll see something that says 'pin', actually it's only saying 'chat'.
Nikki Mannathoko:
It says 'pin video'.
Amy Cohen:
Okay.
Nikki Mannathoko:
Yeah, and that should work.
Amy Cohen:
It should say 'pin video', and she should appear large. And the recipe and amounts, if you miss anything, any of the instructions are also in the chat box. Just scroll back up to the beginning, and there's everything there.
Leah Silver:
It actually disappears every, so like if I joined after you posted it, it's not there, so you have to repost all of the ratios.
Amy Cohen:
Okay.
Leah Silver:
Thank you!
Amy Cohen:
Can we do that, Nikki?
Nikki Mannathoko:
Absolutely.
Amy Cohen:
And Nikki, I never can pronounce your last name correctly, but she is our wonderful Brandeis alumni person who, without her, none of this could happen. Instrumental to everything we do, so thank you, Nikki.
Amy Cohen:
And without further ado, did I miss anything?
Nikki Mannathoko:
No, you're good, Amy.
Amy Cohen:
Okay. Leah, take it away.
Leah Silver:
Great! Hi, everyone. Thanks for joining. I think a few people might not be muted, so I'm just going to say again, if you don't mind muting yourself, and we're going to go ahead and get started. So hopefully you know, we're doing this in two parts. We're doing it today and tomorrow. So, a test of patience. Nobody's going to be eating challah tonight.
Leah Silver:
So we're going to go ahead and make the dough today. We're going to do the yeast, we're going to mix it together with the dry ingredients, make the dough, and we're going to let it sit in the fridge overnight to do a nice slow overnight rise, which is my favorite way of making challah, first of all out of convenience, because then you kind of clean up the dirty stuff and tomorrow's not as messy. And so I do that most Thursday nights, and then make the challah on Friday. It's also really good, I think it gives the dough, the challah, a really good consistency.
Leah Silver:
So I hope your challahs turn out great. I'll be honest, with 90 people on here, I assume there's some first-time challah bakers in here. Bread kind of has a life of its own, and so if this is your first time, or even your fifth time, or tenth time making challah, it doesn't turn out perfect every time, because that's just not what happens. Yeast kind of does what it wants to do, the dough kind of does what it wants to do, so if your challah doesn't come out perfectly today, just keep making challah.
Leah Silver:
So we're going to get started. I have two bowls here. I have a small, this is probably, I don't know, five or six inches tall, smallish bowl that will fit all of the liquid. And then I have a much bigger bowl, as you can see, this is probably 12 inches or so, that we're going to be doing most of the mixing stuff in. I like to do all the liquid in one bowl, all the dry stuff in one bowl, and then mix it all together. I find that to be kind of the easiest.
Leah Silver:
So the first thing that we're going to need to do is put warm water, not hot water, warm water. If you have a thermometer, which I don't, I think it's supposed to be about 100 degrees. So, warm. It should not be hot to the touch. It'll kill the yeast. But, with a tablespoon of yeast. So, my yeast, the one I'm using today, is in a jar like this. If you're using a packet, a packet has two and a quarter teaspoons of yeast, and you need three teaspoons, which is a tablespoon, of yeast. So you're going to need a little bit more than one packet of yeast.
Leah Silver:
So, I'm going to go ahead and take a cup and a quarter of warm water and mix it together with a tablespoon of yeast. You guys can do that too. I'll be right back, I need to go to the sink to do this.
Leah Silver:
Okay. And you can just sort of mix that together, and we're going to mix it together with just two teaspoons of sugar. Now, this doesn't need to be super scientific. I'm actually going to take just a teeny bit of sugar from [crosstalk 00:07:16] pour in a little bit.
Amy Cohen:
Just could you say the amounts again?
Leah Silver:
Yup, so it's a cup and a quarter of warm water, with one tablespoon of yeast, and about two teaspoons of sugar. And I have it in a bowl here. I'm just going to kind of mix this together. And then, we've got to let this sit. So the reason that we do this, most of you I assume are using active dry yeast, so we're doing this basically to test the yeast, to make sure it's okay, and the sugar kind of feeds it a little bit, so that it activates it a little more.
Leah Silver:
So after a few minutes, it should become kind of bubbly. I'll show you, hopefully this works for me in a few minutes. I'm just going to put this off to the side, and we're going to get going with our dry ingredients. Maybe I'll give everyone just a minute to finish up their yeast-water-sugar combos before we go on.
Nikki Mannathoko:
Leah, we just got a question in the chat. Somebody's asking if, they're saying that we are using the packet. How much of the second packet, and how much sugar?
Leah Silver:
Okay, so, yeah. Well, if you could use a tablespoon measure, that would be good, because then that would just help you out, and it's going to end up being all of one packet and a little bit of the next one. So, if you could pour it into a tablespoon, that'll help you out, but it's going to be a little less than half of the second packet. But that's, I think, we're measuring.
Amy Cohen:
And Leah, someone also asks, how much water if you only have one packet of yeast. Do you cut back the water a little bit?
Leah Silver:
I would just say, if you're using two and a quarter teaspoons, start with a cup, or a cup and an eighth if you want to do that, but start with a cup of water, because yeah, we can add more yeast. So just, I would start wit a cup of water, and if you need to add a little bit more, if you see the dough is, then you can always add a little bit more, later.
Nikki Mannathoko:
Another question, do we mix everything or just put it in a bowl?
Leah Silver:
Yes, mix it. Mix it together a little bit, otherwise the yeast can get kind of clumpy. So I just swirled it around a little bit. Now I'm leaving it, because it's starting to bubble, but yeah, when you first mix it in, yeah, mix it around a little bit.
Nikki Mannathoko:
And somebody's asking, so they used cold water. Do they need to start over again, did they mess up, or is that okay?
Leah Silver:
Because yeast is such a commodity right now, I would say leave it and watch it and see. If it doesn't bubble at all in ten minutes, then you might need to start over, and if you're using, if you know that the yeast you're using is good, it's going to be fine, but if it's been in the cabinet for a while, you're not sure, or you bought it from the store and it was like, all the way in the back under the shelf and the last one there, then you're going to want to make sure that it works. I would say yeah, so it kind of depends on, let's wait ten minutes and see what happens. I wouldn't be saying that if yeast was very easy to find right now, but it's not.
Amy Cohen:
And people are asking again about how much sugar goes into this mixture.
Leah Silver:
About two teaspoons.
Leah Silver:
Okay, can I just get, I'm just going to scroll through here, some thumbs up if we're ready to go on? Thumbs up if we're ready to go to the next, okay. I see some thumbs. Cool, cool, cool. Okay, great, I see a lot. Awesome. We're going to go. We're going to move on.
Leah Silver:
Big bowl, here. The flour is going to go in here, the sugar is going to go, I'll tell you the amounts. But the flour, the sugar, the salt, that's what's going to go in here. So I'm using all-purpose flour. I start with four cups. I know I'm probably going to need to add a whole other cup, but you can't take it out once you put it in.
Leah Silver:
So I'm starting with four cups of flour. If you're using whole wheat flour, I think with these proportions you're also fine. You may need to add a little bit of water, because I know that I'm basically going to need five cups of all-purpose flour. So if you're using whole wheat, you should also be fine starting with four. If you're using a mix, unless you're using some like, gluten free something, which isn't going to make you challah, then I think you'll be fine with what the flour you're using.
Leah Silver:
Now I know a lot of people say that baking is like a very exact science. I find that like, okay, you can mess, there's wiggle room with challah. So it's all going to be okay.
Leah Silver:
So I'm using four. I'm not packing it down or anything like that. I'm just sort of shaking it off a little, make sure I have, is that my third? That looks like three cups. I think so. Yeah, I think that was three. Okay. One more.
Nikki Mannathoko:
Leah, just one more question.
Leah Silver:
Yeah.
Nikki Mannathoko:
Someone is asking how do you measure the flour.
Leah Silver:
So, yeah. I just, I mean, it's in my bowl right now, but I'll show you what I did. Basically just scoop it up, and then I just shook it off a little to make sure it was about level. I don't pack it in. If you want to take a knife and level it off, you can, but I don't find that to be particularly meaningful here. So just kind of scoop it. Whatever container it's in, make sure it's about level with your container with your measuring cup, and dump it in.
Amy Cohen:
And one more question, Leah, I saw, was you put the sugar and the yeast in the water, correct?
Leah Silver:
I put two teaspoons of sugar in the yeast. We're going to be putting more sugar here. So we put two teaspoons of sugar in the yeast. If you've put all your sugar in the yeast, that's fine. It's going to be fine. But I put two teaspoons in. More sugar is going in this bowl right here, though.
Leah Silver:
So I have my flour. Now I need sugar, which, what did we say here? A third of a cup. I was saying earlier, I don't really look at a recipe so much anymore, and this is another area, the sugar, where you want a little more, you like really sweet challah, put a half a cup of sugar. You like it not so sweet, you can hold back a little bit. This part is kind of up to you. I'll do a third.
Leah Silver:
We're also going to be using a little honey later. Sometimes I've made challah using no sugar and only honey, and that's very good. But if you want to follow along, do exactly what we're doing, then do a third of a cup of sugar, and then one and a half teaspoons of salt. This is like, the cheap salt.
Speaker 4:
How much salt did she say? I didn't hear. How much sugar? How much salt, I mean?
Leah Silver:
One and a half teaspoons.
Speaker 4:
Two teaspoons of sugar and one cup of warm water.
Leah Silver:
And once those three things are in my big bowl, I'm just going to give it a little stir, okay, nothing too, I mean there's not much in here. Just to kind of mix it all together, because the next thing that's going to go in here is all the liquid and I kind of just want to make sure the flour, the sugar, and the salt is sort of incorporated there before I go on.
Leah Silver:
So I'll give everyone a minute to do that. Let me check on my yeast. Okay. Let me show you what my yeast looks like. It's bubbly. Can you kind of see the bubbles over there?
Nikki Mannathoko:
Yup, we can see it.
Leah Silver:
So if your yeast is not bubbly, you could still give it another minute or two. But if it looks like kind of clear water, okay, then your yeast has not proofed.
Amy Cohen:
Nikki, could you repost the ingredients again for those who came late?
Nikki Mannathoko:
Sure.
Amy Cohen:
Thank you.
Leah Silver:
Can I just get, can we see some thumbs again? Our thumbs are going to get pretty doughy and I'm going to put thumbs if you're ready to go on. Cool. Hi, [inaudible 00:17:00]
Nikki Mannathoko:
And Leah, we've got a question about using an electric mixer. Is that good to use?
Leah Silver:
Okay. So you're using, I assume this is, you should not be using a hand mixer that has, you know, whisky things. If you're using a stand mixer that has a dough hook, that's a different story. I don't do that, so I can't... you might have to put the liquid in first and then put the dry ingredients in. I think what you would do is take the liquid, put it in, and add the flour cup by cup, and use the dough hook of your mixer, but I don't want to be quoted on that, because I've never done that. But that's what I've seen.
Nikki Mannathoko:
Another ques-
Leah Silver:
Oh, go ahead, go ahead.
Nikki Mannathoko:
Yeah, one more question. So when do we know when to add extra flour?
Leah Silver:
I'll let you know.
Nikki Mannathoko:
Okay.
Leah Silver:
Yeah, I'll let you know. Yeah. You wouldn't know yet, because we haven't put our liquid in. Again, I think most of you, if you're using the ratios I'm using, most of you will have to use extra flour, unless you're like, on the north pole right now, then maybe not. So, okay.
Amy Cohen:
Leah, can I ask you, as you put the ingredients in, if you could repeat the amounts you're putting in when you do it? Because there are people having a hard time keeping up, a little bit.
Leah Silver:
Okay. I will do that. I'll slow down a little bit.
Amy Cohen:
Great.
Leah Silver:
So right now, I'm back to the liquid bowl, and we're going to be putting in some more liquids. We're going to be putting in honey, eggs, and oil. I'll go through that.
Leah Silver:
So, honey. I'm not going to measure it. I'm going to do like two or three squeezes of honey, okay? If you want to measure it out, I wrote two to three tablespoons, but yeah. And one tip for measuring out honey, if you can put a little bit of oil or PAM in the measuring cup, and that way the honey won't stick to it. It'll kind of just slide right out. But I'm just taking a couple of squeezes of honey. I like sweet challah. Okay. So that was two to three squeezes, or three tablespoons of honey.
Leah Silver:
And now I'm going to crack two eggs. I'm going to crack them right in here. Some people crack them in a separate bowl and put them in, but I'm fine doing this.
Nikki Mannathoko:
Leah, quick question. Where do we put the honey?
Leah Silver:
Honey is part of the liquid. Everything I'm doing right now is in the small liquid bowl. The honey, the eggs, the oil are in the small liquid bowl. So, I'm going to put my second egg in, in the liquid bowl, and still in the liquid bowl, I'm taking oil. A quarter of a cup of oil. If all you have is olive oil, that's actually going to be really yummy. I do that sometimes. But for just sort of a more simple flavor, just a quarter of a cup of vegetable oil, okay?
Leah Silver:
And this is, again, going in the liquid bowl. I have not put anything else in the flour bowl for a few minutes. So I'm all in here.
Leah Silver:
So just to recap that, we just put into the liquid bowl that had our yeast, we put in two to three tablespoons of honey, two eggs, and a quarter cup of oil. I'm going to mix this together. Just to get the, we don't need to take a whisk to it or anything like that, but just to get, the honey's probably sunk to the bottom, so I'm just going to mix it a little bit and try to break up the eggs a little bit before I put it in the flour bowl. But it's going to get mixed some more with our hands in a minute.
Nikki Mannathoko:
Yeah, we have a few questions. One, "what do you do when the yeast mix is lumpy but not opaque yet?" That's the first one.
Leah Silver:
Okay. So you need to be seeing some bubbles, and it needs to look like it sort of poofed up a little bit. If it doesn't, if it's really clumpy, then to me that means it didn't proof, and you should do it again, or that yeast isn't good. You should do it again with different yeast, or your yeast is not good, in which case, there's no... unfortunately, no real replacement for yeast.
Leah Silver:
So I would say you can give it another minute or two and see, but if it's really clumpy and nothing's happening, it hasn't poofed up at all, it doesn't look bubbly, try it again in another bowl if you have the yeast, and if not, you can try to make it. It might rise overnight, but the way that we know for sure that the dough is going to rise is if our yeast bubbled.
Nikki Mannathoko:
Perfect. Another question, "Is it okay for eggs to be cold, or should they be allowed to come to-"
Leah Silver:
Yeah. Yeah, that's fine.
Nikki Mannathoko:
Room temperature. Okay.
Leah Silver:
I think that's fine. I'm sure some professional chef would say no, but I usually take them right out of the fridge.
Nikki Mannathoko:
Okay.
Leah Silver:
Can you tell I'm a professional?
Nikki Mannathoko:
Awesome. Good to go!
Leah Silver:
Okay. So, good to go. Great. So, again, I'm just mixing the liquid a little bit, just so I know that the honey isn't clumpy on the bottom, and just to try to break up the egg a little bit. Now we're going to start combining. Now, when I combine the liquid and the flour, first I pour it in. I mix it with a spoon for a bit, and then I'm going to have to get my hands in. So, yeah. That's what's going to have to happen. Just get ready for that. So, yeah, you might want to take your rings off, wash your hands, although I'm sure you did that a hundred times today.
Leah Silver:
Here we go. Ready? So I'm going to take my liquid, I'm going to pour it in. I know, I can already see I'm going to need more flour, but that's okay. Then I'm just going to take this. Tilt down a little bit. I'm sort of gently, just gently, whatever this motion is called. I don't know. Folding? Just to get the liquid sort of bread.
Leah Silver:
I can tell this dough is pretty wet, but you can see it's actually starting to come together already. All right. Are we ready to go in? Maybe. I'm going to put a teeny bit of oil on my hands. Oftentimes I use a rubber glove while I'm doing this, but I don't want to freak anybody out with rubber gloves right now. Okay, so I'm putting a little bit of oil on my hands. You know what, also keep your flour close by. Okay, should have done that before I oiled my hands. Just going to get a little flour into a bowl off to the side here, because I know I'm going to need to add some more.
Amy Cohen:
Nikki, can you repost the ingredients for the yeast bowl again?
Leah Silver:
I'm just going to take-
Nikki Mannathoko:
Sure.
Leah Silver:
...take the dough off my spoon. I don't need that anymore. And I'm going to start going in. Okay, so I sort of lift part of it up and push down. Lift part of it up and push down. I can tell this dough is very sticky. Very, very sticky. So I'm going to go ahead and add some more flour. I'm going to start by adding another half a cup. So I'm just going to sprinkle that on until I can tell it's very, very dry. I might not need more than that, I'll see. Okay.
Leah Silver:
So again, you're sort of lifting up and pushing down, and lifting part of it up and pushing it back down.
Leah Silver:
I think this is a really soothing part of making challah, when the dough is starting to come together, just you and the dough. So I'm going to do, it kind of depends on the week, but I feel like I can do, this is a big bowl here, I'm going to do all my kneading right here in the bowl.
Leah Silver:
If you feel like you really want to put two hands into it, your bowl's not so big, you can put some flour on your countertop, and you can do it on the countertop too. I feel like I'm using a very big bowl today, and I'm comfortable holding the side of the bowl with one hand and kneading the dough with the other hand, like this. But if that's not feeling comfortable, and you have the counter space, you can definitely do it on your countertop.
Leah Silver:
Are there any questions now, as you're kneading dough?
Nikki Mannathoko:
Yes, there's actually a few in the chat box. So, one, "Should we add more yeast if we don't see bubbles?"
Leah Silver:
I would say if you don't see bubbles, you need to do the yeast all over again. Just adding more is not going to, I don't think going to do anything, and it might be, the chances of this in such a big group I feel like are kind of high that at least one or two people, their yeast just is no good, and they're not going to be able to really make good challah today. That might happen. So, we're just going to try to roll with it, but I would say if your yeast totally fails, if you have some more yeast that you want to use, try the yeast part all over again, with the warm water, with the yeast. Mix it together, see if it bubbles. But it might not. We'll see.
Nikki Mannathoko:
Okay. And another question, "Is it okay to use a metal bowl for the rise?"
Leah Silver:
Yes.
Nikki Mannathoko:
Okay.
Leah Silver:
Yeah.
Nikki Mannathoko:
Last question, "Is the water not hot enough if the yeast doesn't rise?"
Leah Silver:
It kind of depends. Your yeast could be, it could have been that the water wasn't hot enough. So whoever, I'm curious what happened to the cold yeast person, if their yeast did end up rising. So it could be that the water wasn't warm enough, and it didn't rise yet. If the water wasn't warm enough, it would still rise. It would just take a long time. So for example, just to give an example of temperature, most people make their challah, let it sit out for two hours to let it rise, and then go ahead and braid it. We're going to be doing it cold, a cold rise. It will still rise, but it's going to go much slower over a longer period of time. So if your yeast is good, even if your water is not warm, it will still rise, it may just take more time. But if you use warm water and nothing happens to your yeast, then your yeast might not be great, and that's not your fault.
Nikki Mannathoko:
Okay. Got a few more questions. "What consistency do we want?"
Leah Silver:
Okay, good question. So I'm going to go at it a little bit more here, but I feel like I am pretty close. I see that it's like, sticking a lot to the bottom, so I'm going to add a little bit more flour. I'm just going to sprinkle a little bit more. If you want to know exactly how much, I would say that was less than a quarter of a cup. So if you fill a quarter of a cup, like half of that. It was about an eighth of a cup.
Leah Silver:
And I'm going to knead it a little bit more. Now, I actually think I'm almost there. Let me show you. So here's my dough baby. It's not hard. You can see it's not, if I left it on my hand long enough, it would start to droop off the sides, but not too quickly. And this other hand, it's not sticking to at all. Didn't stick to that hand at all.
Leah Silver:
So I'm almost there, I'd say. I'm just about ready. Some people like to let it rest for a few minutes, then knead it for a few minutes more. You can do that. Once your dough starts to come together, you don't need to be too aggressive. You might also almost be there.
Leah Silver:
So I'm just going to give it like, I don't know, one or two. Just a few more. Yeah. I'm feeling good.
Nikki Mannathoko:
Great. Follow-up to that, "What happens if it feels very sticky, and we already added flour?"
Leah Silver:
You might need more flour, especially depending on where you are. I feel like my kitchen this afternoon was actually pretty cold, so if it was a lot warmer, I may have needed more flour. So you might just need more flour. I would add some flour, knead it for a minute or two, and then, if you need to, you can add some more. But oftentimes, people kind of add more flour too soon. You might just try to knead it a little bit before you add more.
Nikki Mannathoko:
Awesome. We are good to go.
Leah Silver:
Okay, cool. Can everyone hold up their dough to the camera? Either like this or in your bowl? Can we see some dough?
Leah Silver:
Karen, that looks good. I don't know you but nice to meet you. Stephanie, that looks good. Whoa, a lot of nice dough. Looks good, people! We're going to have some nice challah tomorrow. Cool. All right, awesome.
Nikki Mannathoko:
Lisa, somebody from the chat said, "I'm not good to go," so maybe let's wait for a few.
Leah Silver:
Not good to go. Okay.
Nikki Mannathoko:
Few minutes, yeah.
Leah Silver:
Yeah, I did sort of a scan, but it's hard to scan 95 people.
Leah Silver:
Okay, so I'm going to start to talk about wrapping it up, about how we're going to store it. What I like to do is sort of take a little, I'm not going to do this quite yet, I'll explain it and then I'll do it, I put a little oil on my hands and kind of rub the oil around the challah a little bit. I make sure the dough has sort of formed a ball, so I like to kind of take it and sort of wrap it under itself a little bit, kind of like this, to make a ball. And then I'll put oil on it in a moment.
Leah Silver:
Then I put a piece of cling wrap over it, or saran wrap, and then a piece of foil. You kind of want it, if it was just sitting out on the counter, if you just had a towel or something, that would be fine, but for an overnight rise, if we just did that, the top would get kind of crusty, and we don't want that. So put, I would do at least tinfoil, but maybe some plastic wrap and tinfoil.
Leah Silver:
And then you also want to think about the placement of your dough in the fridge. You probably all know your fridge and where it might be colder. I think often the top in the back is really cold. Don't put it there, we don't want to freeze the dough. So you're just going to want to put it somewhere neutral in the fridge where it's not the coldest part, and where there's not like, air blowing on it or something like that.
Leah Silver:
So we're going to do that. So the first thing we're going to do is put some vegetable oil on. I'm going to put some on my hand and kind of put it over the challah a little bit, if you want to measure that out. So just do about a tablespoon of oil, and just kind of rub it over the dough. And then I'm going to wash my hands, and then we'll cover it.
Leah Silver:
So I'm just going to take some little bit of oil. Okay. And I'm going to wash my hands. Be right back.
Leah Silver:
Right, how are we doing?
Nikki Mannathoko:
We have a few more questions.
Leah Silver:
Great.
Nikki Mannathoko:
"Any tips for humid places, aka Florida?"
Leah Silver:
Cool. Okay, so yeah, I have made challah in humid places like the Dominican Republic, and you're going to have great challah. You just, you might need a little bit more flour, and you're going to also do a rise in the fridge, so hopefully it's not too humid in your fridge. But it'll be fine. You might just need some more flour.
Nikki Mannathoko:
Awesome. Another question, "Do you think a wax cover would work? We don't have a plastic wrap."
Leah Silver:
A cover what?
Nikki Mannathoko:
A wax cover would work, because they don't have a plastic wrap?
Leah Silver:
You don't have plastic wrap or foil. What else could you cover it with? Wax paper, or I would say also maybe if you have a big plate or something that you could put on top of the bowl, maybe that would work too. Well, the wet towel might be fine too, I'm just not 100% sure.
Nikki Mannathoko:
Okay. Another question, "Why the foil?"
Leah Silver:
I don't know, I just got in the habit of doing that. I also feel like there's something I hate, there's something I don't like about cling wrap. I feel like there's at least what I'm using is never covering all of it, and I feel like with the foil I can know for sure that I'm covering the whole thing. So yeah, you can be more environmental than I am, and just pick one.
Nikki Mannathoko:
Okay. "What do we do if we have no more flour and the dough is sticky?"
Leah Silver:
Good question. I guess you're just going to have to kind of pause it there, because you can't take liquid out. So do the best you can with that, and form it as best as you can, and see what happens when you let it sit. But if you don't have any more flour, then you can't add more flour. So just do the best you can with what you have.
Nikki Mannathoko:
Awesome. "Is the plastic just going over the top of the bowl-"
Leah Silver:
Yup.
Nikki Mannathoko:
"...or is it around the dough itself?"
Leah Silver:
No. Just on top.
Nikki Mannathoko:
Okay, awesome.
Leah Silver:
And the more I'm thinking about it, just one piece of tinfoil is going to be fine too, if you don't want to do both. That's fine.
Nikki Mannathoko:
Okay. "If my bowl has a cover can I use just that?"
Leah Silver:
Yeah, think so.
Nikki Mannathoko:
Okay. And someone asked if you can show your bowl and how it's covered?
Leah Silver:
Yeah. I haven't covered it yet, but I will do that.
Nikki Mannathoko:
Okay.
Leah Silver:
I will do that. You can keep asking questions, if there are more. I might go ahead and do, I don't see the issue with just using tinfoil. I might try that and see what happens. It'll cover it. As long as you're covering it. So I'm just going to take, I might need two pieces of tinfoil, because it's kind of a wide bowl. Let's see. It's sort of a wide bowl, so I have like this, and now I'm going to add another piece.
Nikki Mannathoko:
Okay, and another question. "What about Denver, where the altitude is high?"
Leah Silver:
I have no idea. Denver is beautiful, but I've never baked in Denver, so I would say if you live in Denver, you probably know better than I do what other kind of changes you have to make to your recipes based on altitude, but I don't know the answer to that.
Nikki Mannathoko:
Okay. Last question, "The dough is still sticking to the bowl. Can I still store it with oil on top of it?"
Leah Silver:
The dough is still sticking to the bowl. How-
Nikki Mannathoko:
Yes.
Leah Silver:
How can I see your dough? I can see your, if you turn your camera on I can look. Or if not, that's fine. If it's still super sticky, like you put your finger in and it...
Leah Silver:
Yeah, I mean, you could put a little bit more flour in it, but it does look like a formed ball. So it was super, oh, it is pretty sticky. I would put some more flour in it, if you can.
Speaker 4:
Okay. I can't pick it up though. It's like-
Leah Silver:
Okay, so then can you put more flour in it?
Speaker 4:
No, I'm the one that has no more flour.
Leah Silver:
Oh, sorry, I didn't know who was asking.
Speaker 4:
No, I'm fine.
Leah Silver:
Got it. Sorry. So-
Speaker 4:
I mean, I have almond flour but, yeah.
Leah Silver:
You have, oh, the almond flour. Right, okay. Okay. So just form it as best as you can, and put a little oil around it, and store it.
Speaker 4:
Okay, but is it that bad if it's not on the bottom, the oil?
Leah Silver:
The oil? No, it's fine. It's more for the top so it doesn't get crusty.
Speaker 4:
Okay. Okay, thanks.
Leah Silver:
Yes, you can use bread flour. "Hello from Spain." That's cool. An international challah bake.
Leah Silver:
If the dough is stiff, just leave it. If it's already sort of come together, you can't really add liquid at this point, so just leave it. Let it sit. Definitely don't knead it anymore, and hopefully the overnight rise will be fine.
Leah Silver:
Again, I make no guarantees here. You can just oil the top. Somebody asked me to show the bowl. Here's the bowl, but it already has the foil on top of it, but I'll uncover it for a minute to see. Oiled on top.
Leah Silver:
"Do we put it in the refrigerator?" No, yeah, you can totally put it in the fridge right now. Just put it in, I would say not all the way in the back on the top where, you know, you don't want to freeze. And yeah, we're going to do the best we can.
Leah Silver:
"Will there be a second rise tomorrow?" Okay. So again, to cover it, I just put tinfoil on it. If you want to put saran wrap and tinfoil, I do that a lot. You can do that too. So what we're going to do tomorrow is, if you're, okay. So listen up for one minute before you head out, take your dough out at 3:30 tomorrow, just so it comes back to room temperature, closer to room temperature, a little bit before we get started tomorrow. So then it's going to sit out a little bit then.
Leah Silver:
It's not really going to do much of a rise then, but when we are going to let it rise again, just for 20 minutes, half an hour, about 20 minutes, is after we braid it. We're going to let it rise a little before it goes in the oven. That's going to prevent the braid from pulling apart from each other. So on that second rise, when you let it rise before you put it in, then you just separate out.
Leah Silver:
One layer of tinfoil is fine. I have two here only because my bowl was too big, so I needed two to cover the bowl.
Leah Silver:
So that's it. 3:30 tomorrow, take your dough out. Hopefully it got bigger. You can put plastic wrap, I also do, I didn't today. I was inspired to be more environmentally conscious.
Leah Silver:
We are done. I think we are about done. So if you wanted to head off, you can, I'm happy to stay here for another 10 minutes or 15 minutes to answer any other questions. And yes, I'm happy to send the recipe to whoever. Nikki can help send it out, or I can send you a link.
Speaker 4:
Rachel-
Nikki Mannathoko:
I'll share it in the chat, and what we're going to do is, at the end of all this, we'll all share the ingredients and the step-by-step recipe, but then for now I'll just share this step one along with the ingredients.
Leah Silver:
Great!
Amy Cohen:
Perfect. And just, again, on behalf of the Brandeis Women Association and Brandeis itself, we just want to thank you so much for taking time to do this with us. We really appreciate, I don't know if you could see, but we had over 95 people participating at one point, so. And in Spain. So you are very well received, and thank you so much. And everybody, I guess Leah's going to hang out for a couple minutes and answer any questions, but otherwise, we'll see you tomorrow!
Leah Silver:
Cool!
Speaker 5:
Leah, thank you very much. I tried baking my challah this morning, so that I would have a better sense of what you were doing. I used a mixer with a hook, and I think you can put the flour in the mixer bowl, and then stir in with a spatula the liquid, maybe do a couple of kneads, and then do it. I made this, I don't know if you can see it.
Leah Silver:
Ooh!
Speaker 5:
Now, I don't know if it's cooked long enough. I used six braids, three on the bottom and a smaller one, three on the top.
Leah Silver:
That looks beautiful.
Speaker 5:
Should it have like a hollow sound if I hit it with a knife?
Leah Silver:
Yeah. I mean, the way that I know that it's cooked is if the bottom is browned. If the bottom is really, really pale, can I see the bottom?
Speaker 5:
Oh! Woo hoo!
Leah Silver:
You're good, yeah. You're totally good.
Speaker 5:
Okay. All right, I'll see you tomorrow. Thank you so much.
Leah Silver:
Enjoy it, yeah. Thank you.
Speaker 5:
And everybody remember to take your dough out.
Leah Silver:
Yes. Remember to take your dough out. If you don't, it's not the end of the world. It's fine.
Deborah Sperber:
Leah, can I ask a question? I don't know if you can-
Leah Silver:
Yeah.
Deborah Sperber:
Hello?
Leah Silver:
I need to find who is talking.
Deborah Sperber:
I'm waving to you.
Leah Silver:
I'm going to cancel the spotlight. Okay, yeah. Hi.
Deborah Sperber:
Hi, yeah. I'm down in Miami, I think I've added like a whole extra cup of flour at this point.
Leah Silver:
That's okay!
Deborah Sperber:
Oh! I'm not seeing you, I'm seeing-
Leah Silver:
I'm sorry, I un-spotlighted myself because I couldn't... Okay.
Deborah Sperber:
So my dough is like, doing this, but it's-
Leah Silver:
That's great! No, that looks really good, actually.
Deborah Sperber:
It's not smooth, like yours was a nice ball.
Leah Silver:
That's fine. Making it smooth takes a little bit of practice. I sort of just fold it under itself a little bit, if that makes sense, to pull it under itself a little bit.
Deborah Sperber:
Okay.
Leah Silver:
But you're good. I think you're good.
Deborah Sperber:
Okay, so just oil the top and don't worry about the cracks?
Leah Silver:
Yeah.
Deborah Sperber:
Okay. And then cover it with tinfoil and then plastic around the whole thing after that?
Leah Silver:
Yup, and then just stick it in the fridge. Yeah.
Deborah Sperber:
Okay, great. Thank you very much.
Leah Silver:
Yeah, thank you.
Speaker 7:
Leah, is it the same link tomorrow? The same link for Zoom?
Leah Silver:
Is Nikki here? I think so.
Nikki Mannathoko:
Yes, it is.
Speaker 7:
Thank you. Thanks very much. Bye.
Leah Silver:
Thank you!
Speaker 8:
Hi. I just wanted to say, Deborah, that I'm also, I'm in Hollywood, Florida, and we had to probably add another cup and a half of flour. So I have a feeling it's related.
Leah Silver:
It's definitely related, yes. And I have to add more during the summer than I do in the winter.
Betsy Zalaznick:
Hang on. Okay, okay, okay.
Leah Silver:
I bake it for about a half an hour, 25 minutes, half an hour. But we'll go through all that tomorrow. And it's in the oven for about 25, 30 minutes, depending on your oven.
Amy Cohen:
And I just, as long as everybody, we've still got some people, again. Please, if you're not, haven't looked at our Facebook page and joined us, please do that. Brandeis Women, that's all you have to search on Facebook.
Matthew Walker:
Leah, I have a quick question. Do you ever use a thermometer?
Leah Silver:
I don't.
Matthew Walker:
To measure temperature inside the loaf?
Leah Silver:
I don't.
Matthew Walker:
Okay.
Leah Silver:
But that's a great thing to do, if you have a thermometer. I can find out what the temperature inside the loaf should be tomorrow.
Matthew Walker:
It'd be about 200. You put an-
Leah Silver:
Cool. Yes. Yeah, I don't.
Matthew Walker:
What's the temperature of the oven?
Leah Silver:
I do 340.
Matthew Walker:
Okay, okay.
Leah Silver:
That's what I like, and that, I mean I have also not measured the temperature of my oven. So it tells me it's 340, but I don't know what it is. But I'm going to assume. Leslie, is that a hand up? I think you might be muted.
Matthew Walker:
Who's that? Not me.
Leah Silver:
No, not you. Leslie Ann Alpert.
Deborah Sperber:
Sorry.
Leslie Alpert:
Until my dough, I had it looked like too much flour, certainly didn't need to add any, but then at the very end I took the dough and used it to wipe out the liquid bowl. Just enough difference to make it come together, but my dough was never soft. I could put it up on my hand and let it sit there for an hour and it wouldn't droop over.
Leah Silver:
And you used all-purpose flour?
Leslie Alpert:
Yes.
Leah Silver:
Where are you?
Leslie Alpert:
Claymont, Delaware.
Leah Silver:
Could have to do with the temperature of your kitchen, or anything. Or the yeast that you're using. But hopefully, after it sits for 24 hours, it'll be a nice rise.
Amy Cohen:
I can't find space in my fridge. This is going to take me, it's so loaded with food right now.
Leah Silver:
That I can't help you with. The only thing I can say is if you want to go ahead and, I think you have to come tomorrow but you can leave it out for two hours and do the braiding and baking tonight, if you wanted to.
Amy Cohen:
No, we're going to do this with you. We need you.
Leah Silver:
Yeah, I can't come and clean out your fridge right now. Sorry.
Amy Cohen:
Okay.
Matthew Walker:
Have you added raisins? And when do you add the raisins?
Leah Silver:
So the time has passed of adding raisins, unfortunately.
Matthew Walker:
Okay. Yeah.
Leah Silver:
I mean, you can add it right now. You could add it right now, if you wanted to, it's not too late. But the time is just when you're starting to incorporate the dough. Or else they sort of pop back out. I do, I love eating challah with raisins, but I actually don't like baking challah with raisins, because I find it, I'm into the aesthetics of the challah. I like a nice-looking challah, and I don't like raisins popping out.
Matthew Walker:
Okay.
Leah Silver:
You don't need to preheat the oven. As soon as we come on tomorrow, we'll preheat it. It's going to take us a while, plus another 20 minute rise, before we put it into the oven.
Leah Silver:
Yes, it is possible to over-knead it, but I would say just let it rest at this point. Let it rest at this point, put it in the fridge, and hopefully that'll be fine.