This entry will begin in the form of a question, and I hope that the comment section will bring several recommendations!
As we are making preparations for this next season, I need to prepare challah ahead of time so my husband can have our challah each Sabbath that I’ll be away. I’ve never prepared challah ahead of time, usually I get it started at 3 on Friday afternoon so it’s piping hot out of the oven when we sit down to the table. yum!! With the rest of his family gone, I’m hoping that Sabbath challah will bring him some comfort while we’re away. Once I bought challah from the grocery store bakery for him when I had to be away for a weekend. Both he and the children said it was the grossest thing ever and it just wasn’t Sabbath without the “right” challah. LOL
I’m going to braid small loaves then wrap them in plastic wrap and freeze. Now here is where I need help: What instructions do I leave him for thawing and baking the challah? Since I’ve never baked bread from frozen dough, I do not know what to expect. However, I know that several of my friends do this sort of thing on occasion.
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Tell him to move it from the freezer to the fridge on Thursday afternoon/evening, then set it on the counter Friday morning to rise. (You could let the dough do the first rise before you braid, but then straight to the freezer.) By the time it has had the night to thaw in the fridge and the day to come to room temp and finish rising, it should be perfect to finish in the oven in the late afternoon. It’s very low-maintenance. Might want to set reminders on a calendar or something. (I usually freeze my dough before braiding, and thaw like I’ve recommended, then braid and second-rise, for the record.)
Thank you Amy! That sounds easy indeed!! I’m going to be typing up instructions for everything I can think of to try to help him keep up around here.
This is one thing he specifically asked about already. I’m going to make a few larger loaves in case he visits friends one Shabbat while we’re away.
Unfortunately, in my experience, freezing the challah dough and thawing for the second rising has never worked out for me. The dough doesn’t rise correctly and turns out very dense and compact. However, in doing this in the past I froze the already braided loaves, thawed them out and allowed to rise for the second time. I didn’t (as Amy suggested) freeze the dough and braid the loaves after thawing.
Because I work 40 hours a week, Monday-Friday I bake Challah on Sunday afternoons. I freeze the fresh baked and cooled loaves in freezer bags. Then, shortly before the meal on Friday evening I take the loaves out of the freezer and thaw them on the defrost cycle in the microwave for six minutes, turning the loaves every minute. I do three, 2 minute defrost cycles so that the microwave will beep at the 1 minute mark reminding me to “turn the food over”. This works great, the loaves are soft, warm and as close as you can come to “fresh out of the oven” in my opinion.
(My Shabbat Challah is two fairly small loaves that both fit in the microwave for defrosting. For bigger loaves you may need to defrost individually and/or for 8 or 10 minutes — using four or five, 2 minute cycles to get the bread soft and warm)
Thank you Paula. I’m sure that my husband wouldn’t like dense and compact challah.