Challah back (remix!)

Last Friday afternoon I set about making a batch of challah, because really it had been much to long since I'd braided bread. However, to make a long story short, the bread that I ended up making was decimated by other people in my class as well as by a grip of visiting graduate students. So at the end of Friday night I was right back where I started: with no challah.

So yesterday after our algae finals I decided to decompress and take out my dissapointment and frustrations over the test on some innocent challah dough. Kneading is very therapeutic. Except this time I didn't tell anyone what I was doing. Except for Bucket Brigade, and that was only so he would get some this time. For these loaves I decided to try out the rolling pin method of making my braid snakes. The loaf on the right is the rolling pin loaf, and the loaf on the left isn't because I got lazy and just rolled them out all lumpy. I'm pretty sure that Rolling Pin Loaf is the prettiest loaf of challah that I've ever made, and Gnarly Loaf on the left is, well, Gnarly Loaf is what it is. I baked them up and fed part of Gnarly Loaf to Bucket Brigade while giving out some slices to folks who had missed the bread on Friday (and it was only because they were out of town).

Here's a picture of Rolling Pin Loaf after baking. It's just so pretty....Note about my recipe, I forgot the written instructions at home (crisis!) but I realized that I had made challah so many times that I didn't need the written recipe and was able to remember it off the top of my head. That kind of made my day.