Sometimes you read a post, and then you get an idea for something and then you have to DO it. Like right now. This challah is one of those things. Even though I myself cannot eat it. The smell alone…
It was the night before Yom Kippur and I wanted something sweet to break the traditional fast.
Somehow I tripped over this recipe (on Pinterest) for Vanilla Infused Brown Butter Challah and I had a lightbulb moment. The original was filled with cinnamon sugar and appeared to be the offspring of Babka and Challah. Not quite as sweet as the babka but definitely more of an after dinner bread than challah. My kind of baby.
It was perfect but I thought I’d put my own twist on it by making it with date honey and cocoa – similar to the yeasty ruggelach that I used to love so much in Jerusalem.
So off we go! First I prepared my usual challah recipe. It’s no-fail and fast so I stuck with what I knew.
While it was rising I made the brown butter. This involves melting copious amounts of butter (I did a stick plus) and carefully browning it. Take care to chop it up and/or use butter that is room temp so you get an even melt and avoid scalding. I do this over medium heat and turn the burners off after the butter has stopped foaming and commenced tanning. After a few stirs I remove to a cool burner, stir more and then transfer to a glass container. It’s easy to burn the butter if you are not careful. I added a teaspoon of vanilla to the warm melted butter and just like that my entire house smelled like toffee and I knew the fast was going to be much harder this year.
I divided the risen dough into two loaves worth, and rolled each out into a thin rectangle.
Then I brushed on the brown butter. It smells so good I was tempted to dab some behind my ears.
Next I slathered on some date honey. It’s really date syrup but it is thick like honey and smells a little like caramel. I was generous with this stuff. I used about 1/2 a cup.
Lastly I did a light dusting of good cocoa. I used a sieve to keep it light and un-clumpy.
I rolled the whole thing up, jelly roll style. But instead of cutting into discs, I cut the roll lengthwise, down the center and then sort of twisted the two pieces back together again. Stuff fell out. It was ok. The inspiration recipe has directions for doing this. The only difference is that I did not bother with a springform pan. I coiled this long messy snake into a round bread shape on a silcone lined baking sheet. I left it to rise for another half hour before doing a quick wash with eggwhites and sticking it in a 350 degree oven for 30 minutes.
Oh….
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