Adventures in Challah Stuffing

One half batch of my favorite challah dough... two loaves of challah stuffed with various delicious ingredients... two explosions in my oven.

First:  almond stuffed challah.

I got the idea after impulsively buying a bag of almond meal (finely ground almonds).  I thought that maybe I could make a filling for the challah that was reminiscent of the sugary almond paste that they put in those buttery, delicious almond croissants.

I made the filling according to this recipe and wrapped it into my usual no-knead challah dough.  Apparently I didn't wrap it tight enough, though, because after a few minutes in the oven it looked like the explosion you see below:

Luckily, all of that sweet, toasted almond shrapnel was pretty tasty, and a good amount of the filling stayed in the bread, creating a subtle swirl of almondy goodness throughout:

Second: spiced apple stuffed challah.

This one was to use up some Malang apples I had sitting in the fridge... I wanted to follow this recipe from What Jew Wanna Eat because I found her blog title and premise to be really hilarious, but I worried that the raw apples wouldn't cook sufficiently inside the bread and I wanted to make sure the spice flavors came through... so instead I sauteed 2 large peeled and diced apples in a teeny bit of butter, a couple dashes of cinnamon, a sprinkle each of cardamom and nutmeg, and about a tablespoon of honey.  Then I wrapped them up in the remaining challah dough, braided it and stuck it in the oven, at which point, you probably guessed, it exploded.

This one didn't have as much leakage as the almond challah, but was still bursting (literally) with apple pieces.  Tasted pretty damn good, though.

The next day it was a little soggy from the moisture of the apples, but a quick warming in the oven took care of that.

Challah with Red Bean Paste

One of the more fun things about living in Indonesia is seeking out and experimenting with new ingredients.  One ingredient that I love, but had not yet used myself, is red bean paste.  Sweetened red beans are used in lots of Asian desserts... dumplings, pancakes, buns, icy desserts.  Sounds weird, but it's good stuff... sweet, but kinda earthy in a way.  My favorite red bean dessert is deep-fried, sesame-covered red bean balls.

I found a bag of red bean paste at the grocery store and bought it immediately.  Next was to figure out what to do with it...  I wasn't quite ready for the sesame balls (haven't yet figured out which of the many exotic flours at the store is the glutinous rice flour, plus deep frying scares me), but I was inspired by some bread that Tim brought home for me from the Japanese grocery store by his office... sweetish, soft white sandwich bread with swirls of red beans throughout.  Mmm.  

Mini oven.  Big flavor.

I decided to go for something similar to the Japanese bread; a fusion of something I know how to make, sweet challah bread with sesame seeds, with my new ingredient, red bean paste.  Boom.  I fused the crap out of it. It was pretty awesome.

To get the thick red bean paste into the dough (the basic challah from Artisan Bread in 5 Minutes a Day), I split the dough into 3 equal(ish) pieces, rolled them out into long, thin pieces, then topped each with a long, thin log of red bean paste.  I rolled the dough around each of the bean paste logs to encase them and then braided them together in the normal fashion.  This worked pretty well, but ultimately the bean paste wasn't spread out through the dough enough for my taste- it was limited to 3 big blobs in each slice:

On my second try, I rolled the dough out the same way, but rather than logs of bean paste, I flattened it out to the extent I could and spread it across the dough, then rolled each of the 3 dough pieces (kinda like how you add the nuts and cinnamon sugar to make the spirals in cinnamon buns) and then braided them together.  The red bean paste was better dispersed through the dough using this method (I think... I sent the second loaf to work with Tim without cutting it open and thus did not see the inside).

UPDATE: I know you were all waiting with bated breath... Tim took a photo of the bread swirled with the red bean paste using the second methodology... bean disbursement is much better:

 

Apple Brown Betty

I saw this recipe for Apple Brown Betty on The Slow Cook, which is a blog written by a fellow Columbia Heights resident who has a massive garden in front of his row house. I had a bunch of aging apples from the past several weeks of CSA, as well as some somewhat petrified challah that I made last week, so I figured it was a go... plus I really like the name "apple brown betty."

I used an amalgamation of a bunch of different recipes... but in a nutshell, I layered brown sugar/cinnamon/nutmeg with melted butter covered challah bread crumbs and sliced apples covered in lemon juice. Baked at 375 for 40 minutes covered in foil, then set under the broiler for 3 minutes to brown. Served with vanilla ice cream! Easy and tasty alternative to apple crisp.

Pumpkin Bread Pudding with Caramel Sauce

I have had this pumpkin bread pudding on my to-make list for weeks now, but none of the grocery stores in the 'hood have been able to keep canned pumpkin in stock since the beginning of September. Luckily, the lovely Lindsay donated a couple cans from her pantry stock.

To makes this bread pudding, I cut up some homemade challah, substituted toasted pecans for the golden raisins called for in the recipe, and made my own pumpkin pie spice, since I didn't have any.

Really easy and really tasty: kinda like a cross between soft french toast and pecan sticky buns, with a touch of pumpkin pie. The pumpkin flavor was pretty subdued, surprisingly...

Garlic Parmesan Swiss Chard Bread

I saw this recipe on the Artisan Bread in 5 Minutes a Day website... and I had a bunch of CSA Swiss chard on the verge of going bad in the fridge, so I gave it a try. It uses the challah dough that we like around here and adds garlic and parmesan- how could it be bad?

I was worried after my last stuffed bread experiment went awry, I was worried about this one cooking all the way through. But it worked! It was really good, too.

Ham and Cheddar Stuffed Challah: FAIL

I got the idea for this from the source: the Artisan Bread in 5 Minutes a Day blog. They did a stuffed challah with strawberries and cream cheese. I took it the savory route, and spread a thin layer of Dijon mustard, then laid down some thinly sliced cheddar and ham and ground some black pepper in there, too.

Something apparently went very wrong, though, because although the outside looked beautiful... the inside was not fully cooked. And by "not fully cooked," I mean totally raw in parts. No amount of heating was cooking those raw parts, either.

Next time I think I will try this method of rolling it out, which doesn't have any dough in the middle of the filling- just on the top and bottom. I had made the spinach and feta stuffed bread several months ago for a book club, and that method was not a failure.

Well, at least the outside layers tasted good!

Challah French Toast

French toast made with homemade challah, using Ina's recipe (minus the orange zest because I didn't have an orange) = deliciously custardy.

Served with McCarthy's #4 maple syrup = deliciously sweet taste, but lacking some viscosity.

HOLLA!

Cough cough...I mean... CHALLAH!

Baked this baby last night as part of my new baking adventure. The recipe is from this book, which I bought after reading rave internet reviews of its magically simple bread-making techniques. So far the raves seem to be pretty accurate. This bread is super easy and very tasty. My next plan is to make Pecan Sticky Buns with the remaining challah dough. Mmm... sticky buns...