This weekend is Rosh Hashana and I had a bunch of bourbon peach preserves left from a cheesecake I made last week. So I combined two challah recipes from smitten kitchen and made this!
Peach Challah
smittenkitchen.com/blog/2011/09/apple-and-honey-challah/
smittenkitchen.com/blog/2012/09/fig-olive-oil-and-sea-sal...
I combined these two recipes and used some leftover bourbon peach preserves for the filling
One tip: If you measure your oil in your 1/3 cup measuring cup first, and then your honey, the honey will slide right out.
Makes 1 round woven challah
Bread
2 1/4 teaspoons (1 standard 1/4-ounce packet) active dry yeast
1/3 cup plus 2 tbsp (79 ml) plus 1 teaspoon honey
1/3 cup (79 ml) neutral oil, plus more for the bowl
2 large eggs plus 1 large yolk
1 1/2 teaspoons (8 grams) table salt
4 1/4 cups all-purpose (530 grams) or bread flour (578 grams), plus more for your work surface
Peach Filling: make a day before (you’ll need 3 cups)
8 ripe but firm peaches (about 3 pounds)
6 tablespoons (3 ounces) unsalted butter, melted
2/3 cup Bourbon
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 cup packed dark brown sugar
450°F. Line 2 rimmed baking sheets with foil.
Dice peaches Arrange in single layer on 1 prepared baking sheet.
Whisk together melted butter, bourbon, and salt in medium bowl. Drizzle on diced peaches. Sprinkle sugar on diced peaches. Toss peaches to coat and rearrange in single layer. Roast until peaches are tender and liquid is syrupy, about 15 minutes, alternating baking sheets’ positions halfway through. Transfer to cooling rack and cool completely, about 20 minutes.
Transfer peaches to a heavy sauce pan and cook until peaches fall apart (or put in crock pot on high until cooked down)
Egg wash
1 large egg
Coarse or pearl sugar for sprinkling (optional) I left it out
Make your dough: Whisk yeast and 1 teaspoon honey into 2/3 cup warm water and let stand until foamy, a few minutes.
With a stand mixer: In the bowl of a stand mixture, whisk together yeast mixture, oil, remaining honey (1/3 cup), eggs and yolk. Switch to dough hook and add 4 1/4 cups flour and salt. Use dough hook on a moderate speed until it pulls all of the flour and wet ingredients together into a craggy mass. Lower the speed and let the dough hook knead the dough for 5 minutes, until smooth, elastic and a little sticky.
By hand:: In a large bowl, whisk together yeast mixture, oil, remaining honey (1/3 cup), eggs and yolk. Add flour all at once and stir with a wooden spoon until you get a craggy mass of uneven dough. Turn dough out onto a floured counter and knead it into a smooth, elastic dough, about 5 to 8 minutes. Try to use as little flour as necessary when kneading the dough; you don’t want to toughen the bread. A bench scraper can make it really easy to remove it from the counter if it gets stuck in a spot.
Both methods: Transfer dough to large oil-coated bowl, cover with plastic wrap and set aside for 1 hour, or until almost doubled in size.
Insert Peach preserves: After your dough has risen, turn it out onto a floured counter and divide it in half. Roll the first half of the dough into a wide and totally imperfect rectangle (really, the shape doesn’t matter). Spread half the peach filling evenly over the dough, stopping short of the edge. Roll the dough into a long, tight log, trapping the filling within. Then gently stretch the log as wide as feels comfortable (I take mine to my max counter width, a pathetic three feet), a divide it in half. Repeat with remaining dough and peach filling.
Weave your bread: [See photos in post.] Divide dough into 4 pieces. Roll and stretch each one as carefully as you can into a rope — don’t worry about getting it too long or thin, just 12 inches or so should do. If any apple chunks fall out as you form the ropes or at any other time in the forming of the loaf or risings, just poke them back in with your finger.
Arrange two strands in each direction, perpendicular to each other, like a plus sign. Weave them so that one side is over, and the other is under, where they meet. So, now you’ve got an 8-legged woven-headed octopus. Take the four legs that come from underneath the center and move them over the leg to their right, i.e. jumping it. Take those legs that were on the right and again, jump each over the leg before, this time to the left. If you had extra length to your ropes, you can repeat these left-right jumps until you run out of rope. For me, this was enough. Just as you had with the folded packet of apple dough above, tuck the corners/odd bumps under the dough with the sides of your hands to form a round.
Transfer the dough to a parchment-covered heavy baking sheet or baker’s peel (if you’ll be using a bread stone). Beat egg until smooth and brush over challah. Let challah rise for another hour but 45 minutes into this rise, preheat your oven to 375 degrees.
Bake your loaf: Before baking, brush loaf one more time with egg wash and sprinkle with coarse sugar if you’re using it. Bake in middle of oven for 40 to 45 minutes. It should be beautifully bronzed; if yours (like mine, except I didn’t catch it in time) starts getting too dark too quickly, cover it with foil for the remainder of the baking time. The very best way to check for doneness in any bread but especially on like this where the wetness of the apples can slow down the baking time a bit, is with an instant read thermometer — the center of the loaf should be 195 degrees.
Cool loaf on a rack before serving. Or, well, good luck with that.
Peach Challah Bread, originally uploaded by queenofthemoodswingset2.
Peach Challah Bread, originally uploaded by queenofthemoodswingset2.
Peach Challah Bread, originally uploaded by queenofthemoodswingset2.
Peach Challah Bread, originally uploaded by queenofthemoodswingset2.
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