Fresh out of my new cast iron Dutch oven. I can’t wait to cut into this bread with Andy tonight!!
There are so many reasons to make your own bread. I can’t even count them! Not the least of these is the way commercial breads are made, not according to traditional (and intuitive) bread-making knowledge. Without getting into a health shpiel at this point, I’ll just say that a lot of our gluten issues would probably resolve if we made our own bread the old-fashioned way.
If you ever hesitated, thinking it’s just too time-consuming…think again! This bread is incredibly easy. It’s a bonafide fast food. So without more ado:
SPELT CIABATTA
1-1/2 cups organic wheat flour (white)
1-1/2 cups spelt flour
1-3/4 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. yeast
1-1/2 cups warm water
Add all the dry ingredients to a large bowl. Stir in the water until all is blended and comes away from the sides of the bowl. Don’t over-stir. I added a few drops of extra virgin olive oil to the bowl and rolled the somewhat sticky bread ball in it. Cover with plastic and leave out on the counter for a minimum 12 hours. I left it for 18 hours.
When you’re ready to make the bread, preheat the oven to 450 degrees. Place the uncovered Dutch oven and the lid in the heated oven for 30 minutes.
Turn the bread out onto a well-floured board. Pat down and fold in thirds, turn and fold in thirds again. Roll slightly to make a ball.
Place the ball, seam-side down, into the Dutch oven and cover. Bake in the covered Dutch oven for 30 minutes. Remove the lid, and bake another 5 minutes.
When I cut into the bread later this evening, I’ll add a picture of what that looks like. In the meantime, I’ll salivate some.
The bread was delicious. I think I’d like it with larger (and more) airholes tho. Will try it next time with a 3:2 flour:water ratio.
P.S. I spent some time reviewing Ciabatta recipes. Authentic Italian recipes use a Biga, somewhat like a sourdough starter. I might try that sometime, but I’m going to work with this method for awhile first. I like this way because it’s one-step. I do want to try adding more water, though. Many of the recipes seem to have about 2/3 the amount of water as flour, I.e., for 3 cups of flour, 2 cups of water. This should make a much looser dough with larger (and more) air holes. I also want to incorporate some of Monica Shaw’s techniques, especially adding seeds to the crust. You can check out her version at smarter fitter.com. I’ll keep you posted!
Getting ready for our guests to arrive . . . four sets of each of seven salads. The challot are not yet on the table.
Last week, we shared a monthly Shabbat dinner in my shul. We call these evenings “Third Fridays” because that’s when we come together to enjoy one of the high points of the Sabbath, an extended communal dinner with learning and songs.
I like to prepare these meals. It’s a meaningful way for me to structure my week. I used to make elaborate meals every week and have guests in my West Rogers Park home. My week was oriented toward finishing the house cleaning, shopping and cooking by sundown on Friday, the beginning of Shabbat.
Then for 26 hours, I “rested,” that is, I visited with friends and family at dinners and midday meals during this weekly holiday, went to synagogue, read, walked and occasionally napped. At the end of the day, well after sunset, I lit the havdalah candle and recited the prayers that end the Sabbath. Then there was that sudden frenzy of activity with the Sabbath over when it was time to run out to a movie or some other Saturday evening activity.
Since cooking isn’t permitted on the Sabbath in a traditional community (cooking is defined as boiling liquid), all the cooking needs to happen before candle-lighting, or sunset, Friday evening. This means there’s something of a frenzy before the Sabbath begins as well.
One of the ways I like to think about that rush before Shabbat is that I am creating the experience for myself (and others) of being nurtured. With everything made before Shabbat begins, I am able to sit at the table with everyone else to enjoy the food and friendship and songs. I feel nurtured. I have bread without work in that moment.
Two Vegan Spelt Challot, plated and tucked under their cover and ready for Shabbat dinner.
It’s hard to describe this weekly experience to someone who has never enjoyed it, the special feelings associated with each hour of the day as the angle of the sun changes and the prayers and songs move successively through the themes of creation, revelation and redemption. There is a feeling of nostalgia and longing associated with those last rays of light slanting into a room at the close of the day toward havdalah and the end of this special time. Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel calls the Sabbath, “a palace in time.”
Sometimes I miss living in a neighborhood that supports this way of living, a community where everything is walking distance, including people with whom I can share the occasion. I’ve really been happy to be able to prepare a Friday evening meal for my synagogue and share it with friends there.
A few months back, I decided to make these Shabbat dinners vegan. My Sabbath experience is deeper and richer and more full of joy when my meals are plant-based, and I have enjoyed the opportunity to try out new dishes with my friends.
Organizing my salads before moving them to the table, four dishes for each of seven salads.
Two of these salads were new to my Shabbat repertoire: Navy Beans with Dill and the Babaganoush. Well, the Babaganoush isn’t really new — it’s just that I used to use Labne, a thick Middle Eastern yogurt, to make mine. This version was vegan.
Navy Bean Salad with Dill – a wonderful salad, especially in the summer, cold, dilly and lemony.Babaganoush – a vegan version. Instead of adding Labne, I made a batch of Tahina sauce to mix in. I’ll post the recipe soon.
I shopped on Wednesday, made all the salads and the mousse on Thursday and made the soups and entrée on Friday. I make challah twice a week and freeze at least one loaf a week for these dinners, which at the present time require four challot. At 3 PM, we left for the synagogue so we could set the tables and plate the salads before Shabbat.
I always prepare a two-minute thought to share with our group, and this time, I asked everyone to think about the difference between habit and ritual. This is a question I worked with recently in preparation for a class I plan to teach next spring. So far I have five ideas about how they are different, but I shared just one: that ritual requires thought and intention while habits are, and are meant to be, thoughtless.
I was very happy to have Rabbi Maralee Gordon with us this week. That meant I could turn the evening over to her to lead Kiddush at the beginning of the evening and Birkat ha-Mazon and singing at the other end of the evening. Everybody helped with serving and cleanup, and I enjoyed a beautiful Shabbat evening with my friends!
For more, visit my blog, vegetatingwithleslie.org, “Like” me on FaceBook/Vegetating with Leslie or follow me on Twitter, @vegwithleslie.
Two challot, plated and tucked under their cover and ready for Shabbat dinner.
Thirty-five years ago, I made challah weekly. In recent years, my schedule has not allowed me to continue this practice. When we began to host Shabbat dinners in my Cafe, some of our regulars always brought in whole wheat challot from a bakery forty minutes from us. On a recent week when that particular group was unable to attend, I decided to try my hand again at making challah.
These days I have considerations I didn’t have thirty-five years ago. One is that I like more of a whole grain loaf than I did in years past, and grains require time and patience, as Sally Fallon points out in Nourishing Traditions.
Another consideration is that I wanted the challot to be vegan, that is, they should use only plant food ingredients, no animal products. With the traditional egg challah, that changes the program considerably. Since my favorite challah, though, is water challah, which I remember fondly from my days in West Rogers Park, that didn’t strike me as a problem. Wrong.
Try searching the internet for a water challah recipe! Many of the recipes with that name included eggs, at the very least an egg wash on the crust to hold the seeds on top. More often the eggs were in the challah itself. Puzzling.
In other search results, it was clear that the search engines simply brought up a result for water challah because the recipe was for challah, which contained water. In addition, all the recipes had quite a bit of sugar.
After much searching, I decided to try using my spelt and 7-grain cereal roll recipe. That worked – sort of. The loaves weren’t as pretty as I hoped and ended up going into my freezer for future home consumption. Back to the internet.
Finally I found an article about something called berches. With that new search term, I was able to find a host of appropriate recipes, recipes with no eggs and very little sugar. I actually did try one of those recipes, and it worked beautifully with one exception – the crust dilemma.
How could I get that beautiful, shiny crust so characteristic of challah and hold an abundance of seeds to the loaf? Flaxseed and water can work as an egg substitute in many cases, so I tried a flaxseed/water wash. It turned the crust white, and all the seeds dropped off. I tried several other techniques, but nothing worked. Finally I gave up on the seeds, but I gave a little shine to the crust by brushing it lightly with extra virgin olive oil when it came out of the oven.
In the search for a water challah recipe, here are some things I learned about challah making that will enrich my own experience:
What I was calling water challah was an egg-free type of challah made in Germany and called berches. The word berches is from the word berach or “bless”. It refers to the challah or bread that one blesses at the Sabbath meal. Many Jews, German and other, no longer know or use that word for the challah, but there are a few bakers in Germany who continue to make it. I was enjoying a commercial variety in West Rogers Park under the name water challah.
Traditionally challah has seven ingredients, corresponding to the seven days of the week or to the fact that Shabbat occurs on the seventh day: 1) flour, 2) water, 3) yeast, 4) salt, 5) sugar, 6) eggs, and 7) oil.
When the Temple was destroyed in 70 c.e., the rabbis created a system of substitutions for Temple worship and a priestly sacrificial system. The family table substituted for the altar, and the ordinary Israelite took on the role of priest. The two loaves of challah on the table represent that transition with the challah substituting for the two loaves of showbread on the ancient altar.
Women were included in that transition as well, and challah-making is a place where we can see that clearly. Part of the ritual of challah-making includes separating the challah, removing a small piece of the dough, saying a blessing and burning the piece in the oven. Since women, once upon a time, were likely to be the ones making the bread, this “sacrifice” would have been an example of their taking on the role of the priest in the absence of a Temple and priestly system.
Most importantly, what I learned from challah-making is how rituals can create a thoughtful, meditative experience and, by the way, good (and nourishing) food. At the intersection of the rituals of bread making, rituals I have developed over the years for creating healthy foods, my newly developing ritual of vegan bread making, and the rituals of challah-making, I had an opportunity to experience with full awareness my place in the cosmos, in history and in the environment. As I ate the challah I made, I experienced it as the Staff of Life it once was and can still be.
Here is my recipe for spelt berches or water challah, which I now make every week again. Be sure to WEIGH the flour. Your challah will come out perfectly every time! If you’ve never used spelt, try it. It’s a form of wheat flour, and it is absolutely beautiful to work with. I use spelt in all my breads now.
BERCHES (Makes 2 loaf pan-sized loaves or two double-braid loaves. 3 lb. 8.2 oz. of flour are required to separate and bless the challah, so if you’d like to perform this ritual, double the recipe).
Ingredients (Still seven ingredients even tho no eggs!)
1 lb. spelt flour, WEIGHED
1 lb. unbleached wheat flour, WEIGHED
1 tsp. active dry yeast
1/2 tsp. sugar
1/4 cup + 2 cups warm water
1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
1 white potato, peeled, cooked, mashed and cooled
1 TB salt
Directions
Peel and cut up the potato and place it in a small pot with water to cover. Bring to a boil, reduce to a simmer and cook until the potatoes are soft.
Drain the potato cooking water into a measuring cup. Add cold water or ice cubes until the water level reaches 2 cups.
Pour the 2 cups of water back into the potatoes and mash thoroughly with 1 TB salt.
Weigh the spelt flour into your mixing bowl until you reach 1 lb. Add unbleached wheat flour until you reach 2 lb.
Stir the flours together and make a well in the center.
Pour 1/4 cup warm water in the well. Add yeast and sugar and stir gently to dissolve. Let sit for 5-10 minutes until bubbling.
Add the mashed potato, salt and water mixture to the flours. Add the extra virgin olive oil to the mix.
Stir all together briefly.
Knead the dough for 10 minutes until it is smooth and elastic. I do this on my Kitchenaid Mixer with the dough hook. The spelt dough works so beautifully that I never have to clean out the bowl before the next step.
Add a little oil to the mixing bowl, and roll the dough in it it until it is completely coated.
Cover the dough in the bowl with a plastic bag (I reserve a garage bag for this purpose). Let rise until doubled in bulk, about two hours.
Punch down, knead slightly and set aside.
Get out your scale and mixing bowl again! Divide the dough into two halves, one for each loaf. Make certain the two halves weigh the same so your loaves will be the same size.
Shape the challot. Divide each half into six approximately equal pieces. Roll into strips as in the picture, with the middle of each strip larger than the ends. Roll in very light flour so strips will remain separate from each other as they rise.
Three strips will make a braid. Place one strip on your work surface, and place two strips over it in an “x” shape. Braid from the middle toward each end and tuck the ends under. Repeat with three more strips. Place one braid on top of the other, and secure the ends.
Repeat this process with the other half of the dough.
Place each loaf on a baking sheet sprinkled with semolina to prevent sticking.
Cover the loaves again with plastic, and allow to rise until doubled, 40 minutes. DO NOT overraise. The top braid will fall to one side, and/or the loaves will flatten.
During this second rise, preheat the oven to 425 degrees.
When the loaves are ready, remove the plastic and put the baking tray with the loaves into the pre-heated oven.
After 10 minutes, reduce the heat to 325 degrees and bake for an additional 30-35 minutes.
Remove from the oven and brush the crust lightly with extra virgin olive oil. Cool.
At this point, I brushed my loaves with a mixture of flaxseed and water, an egg substitute which I hoped would hold seeds in place. It didn’t, and it turned the tops of the loaves white. It did not affect the flavor. I’m going to do a little research for other solutions for a seed-sprinkled shiny vegan challah crust.
Challot rising…Two double-braid loaves of Water Challah or “Berches,” just in time for Shabbat.
I love this beautiful comment from a post in theWeston Price website. The author is contrasting modern bread-making methods with the ways grains were traditionally handled and breads made:
“Grains comprise a wholesome category of foods that must be respected for the complexity of nutrient contributions they can make to the human diet, and must always be prepared with care to maximize those nutrients’ availability as well as neutralize naturally occurring antinutrients. . .
“Growing and preparing food ought to be a sacramental service. It should not be based on violence, as is most of modern agriculture, factory animal farms and factories that produce finished food items like bread. All those processes are based on “conquering” the food item and forcing it into a form defined by commerce. There are no more subtle energies in these debased foods, let alone mere measureable nutrients or soul-satisfying taste and vitality.
“Food is holy. Its preparation and enjoyment constitute a daily opportunity to experience happiness, satisfaction and gratitude.”
I make this 7-Grain Spelt Bread weekly. Spelt is an ancient, easier-to-digest grain. My recipe uses little or no sugar and about 1/3 the yeast in most contemporary bread recipes. Allow plenty of rising time, at least 1-1/2 hours each time. I’m anxious to test out a sourdough version!
Ingredients (Makes about 40 buns)
Bob’s Red Mill 7-grain cereal, 2-1/2 cups (14 oz.)
Boiling water, 5 cups
Extra virgin olive oil, 1/2 cup
Sugar, 1 tsp. (opt.)
Dry yeast, 1 tsp.
Spelt flour, 4 cups (1 lb. 5 oz.)
Unbleached white flour, 3 cups (1 lb. – if you’re happy with a denser texture and longer rising time, replace white with spelt flour)
Salt, 1 TB
Directions
Boil the water, stir the 7-grain cereal into it.
Let the cereal soak for at least 1 hour, stirring occasionally.
Add oil, sugar and yeast to cereal mixture. Stir in and let sit.
Mix flours and salt together.
Mix flours into cereal mixture.
Knead the entire mix on a smooth, lightly floured surface or knead mechanically for 10 minutes. I use my Kitchenaid mixer.
The dough should be very slightly sticky. Keep as light as possible.
Knead dough by hand into a smooth ball.
Place in a well-oiled bowl and oil top of dough. Cover with non-porous material. Plastic garbage bags work. I clean and re-use the same bag every week.
Let rise 1-2 hours. Punch down. Let rise again if there’s time. If not, continue to next step.
Using a 1/4 cup dry measure, pull off a piece of dough and pack it into the cup.
Remove from cup, knead slightly, press smooth side down into cup. Tap firmly on counter to remove from cup and place on baking sheet.
Repeat this process until all buns have been formed.
