So I found a recipe for Pumpkin Challah on http://blogs.babble.com/family-kitchen/2010/10/11/pumpkin-challah/ and I was very very excited to try it. Lately I have been craving all things pumpkin. Now you have to understand my idea of making home made bread is dumping ingredients in a bread maker and double checking the settings to ensure that it comes out perfect. Anyway I waited until my daughter was asleep before I got started. (I work better when I'm by myself and can focus). This of course means that I didn't get started on this project till around 9pm. Why did I start it this late instead of waiting until tomorrow? Well I felt, very strongly that I might never actually make it unless I did it that night and I had a crazy burst of energy that lasted until around 2:30am! Its crazy what pregnancy can do to you.
For the record it turned out beautifully! I highly recommend it. There's just a few things to consider before I ever start again. I had no idea Challah would be so labor intensive!
1.My mixer broke a few months back and I haven't replaced it yet...so I did my ancestors proud and did
everything with a wooden spoon or by hand. My hands are a little tired this morning.
2. It takes awhile to roll the dough into a shape you can braid. It didn't occur to me that having a rolling pin
would have been nice to get it started.
3. There was no warning on the recipe that it could make as much as 6 loaves comparable in size to what
comes out of my bread maker!!!
4. I nearly went to sleep around 2:30 in the morning with a timer to wake me up. Glad I didn't because the
recipe says to bake it for 1 hour but I felt Jesus told me to check it at 30 minutes into baking. It smelled
done and sure enough it was just the right color of golden brown.
So after tasting some of this heavenly-ness that the bread becomes when its done I can say without doubt that I will in fact make it again. I do plan on having the tools I need next time and I think I'll ask a grandma to babysit and make it during the day! I'll post pics of the bread later so you can get the cravings for pumpkin challah as well. For now I think I'm going to go have some for breakfast and get ready to go to the park.
Oh notes on the recipe itself:
I used roasted pumpkin instead of canned. I also ended up using 9 cups of flour instead of 8. Finally as I mentioned earlier it only had to bake for 30 minutes instead of 1 hour.
For the record it turned out beautifully! I highly recommend it. There's just a few things to consider before I ever start again. I had no idea Challah would be so labor intensive!
1.My mixer broke a few months back and I haven't replaced it yet...so I did my ancestors proud and did
everything with a wooden spoon or by hand. My hands are a little tired this morning.
2. It takes awhile to roll the dough into a shape you can braid. It didn't occur to me that having a rolling pin
would have been nice to get it started.
3. There was no warning on the recipe that it could make as much as 6 loaves comparable in size to what
comes out of my bread maker!!!
4. I nearly went to sleep around 2:30 in the morning with a timer to wake me up. Glad I didn't because the
recipe says to bake it for 1 hour but I felt Jesus told me to check it at 30 minutes into baking. It smelled
done and sure enough it was just the right color of golden brown.
So after tasting some of this heavenly-ness that the bread becomes when its done I can say without doubt that I will in fact make it again. I do plan on having the tools I need next time and I think I'll ask a grandma to babysit and make it during the day! I'll post pics of the bread later so you can get the cravings for pumpkin challah as well. For now I think I'm going to go have some for breakfast and get ready to go to the park.
Oh notes on the recipe itself:
I used roasted pumpkin instead of canned. I also ended up using 9 cups of flour instead of 8. Finally as I mentioned earlier it only had to bake for 30 minutes instead of 1 hour.
