Motherdough Challah

Step 1

Add bread flour in a bowl, boil water, pour over flour and mix well with spatula or spoon until no dry flour. Cling film and place in the fridge for at least 4 hours or overnight.

Step 2

Knead on low speed to bring ingredients together.

Step 3

Knead on medium high speed until good gluten development / clean bowl stage.

Step 4

Add in oil in 4-5 parts and knead until theoil incorporate with the dough.

Step 5

Knead until window-pane stage. (The roux may impede a very thin window-pane, so assess the dough to be sure that you have good strength and elasticity in the dough)

Step 6

Shape the dough into a ball and place back in a closed tub. Leave to rest at 22-25ºC. Let the dough retard in the fridge for 12 hours in the fridge at 6ºC.

Step 7

Transfer the dough to a clean flouredsurface then divide into 900g loaves and divide each loaf into into 6 X 150g portions.Form each portion into a ball and then into a rope about 40cm long.

Step 8

Brush 2 of the ropes with egg wash and rollin sesame seeds.

Step 9

Arrange a pair of unseeded ropes on left, a pair of unseeded on the right, two seeded singles in the middle.

Step 10

Braid the 6 strands together to form a loaf. Brush the non-seeded parts with egg wash. See notes on braiding.

Step 11

Prove at 35ºC, with humidity, until double in size (3-4 hours). The oven light method with a tray of boiling water in the oven will work well for this.

Step 12

Preheat oven 200C fan on, for 30 minutes.

Step 13

Brush non seeded ropes with egg wash again.

Step 14

Bake in for about 25-35 minutes, or until golden brown.  Steam once at the beginning of baking. Rotate the tray half-way if necessary for evenly baked.

Step 15

Remove challah from oven and let cool on rack completely. Brush with vegetable oil, warmed golden syrup or simple syrup for shine.