Making Challah

[Anonymous]

I made a challah bread from the King Arthur flour recipe. I followed the instructions carefully. It came out looking great but it was not sweet at all which was disappointing. The recipe said to use 3 tablespoons of honey and 3/4 tablespoons of salt. All you could taste was the salt though. Has anyone tried this recipe before? I’m disappointed. Should I add some sugar on top of the honey next time?

[Anonymous]

Something is wrong if you can taste only 3/4 tsp of salt in a loaf of bread.

Did you accidentally use the wrong sized spoon? Such as using tablespoon instead of teaspoon? Or using a half teaspoon to measure the 3/4 and ending up with 1.5 tsps instead of 3/4?

Most bread has a full teaspoon of salt, not 3/4, so you shouldn't taste the salt since 3/4 is less than typical .

[Anonymous]

Challah is like brioche— it’s more the eggs than sugar or honey.

[Anonymous]

Maybe I will try it again. The texture came out perfect but the flavor is a bit flat. Anyone have a favorite recipe. The bakery challahs seem sweeter to me

[Anonymous]

I also did an egg yolk wash on top which made it seem overpoweringly eggy to me when I took it out of the oven

[Anonymous]

OP said she used 1.5 TABLESPOONS of salt.I googled King Arthur challah recipes. They call for 1.5 or 1.75 TEASPOONS of salt.

A tablespoon is 3 teaspoons.

OP likely used too much salt.

[Anonymous]

Opps she said 3/4 Tablespoon. That's 2.5 teaspoons. Still too much.

[Anonymous]

I actually think I used 3/4 tsp not tablespoons. My mistake in the original post. I think I will try again next week and decrease salt to 1/2 tsp. Also, the challah tastes a lot better today than yesterday. The rest seems to have helped it. But still not sweet enough

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I actually think I used 3/4 tsp not tablespoons. My mistake in the original post. I think I will try again next week and decrease salt to 1/2 tsp. Also, the challah tastes a lot better today than yesterday. The rest seems to have helped it. But still not sweet enough

3/4 TSP shouldn't have made it that salty, not with 4 cups of flour. So I do suspect you mixed it up when making the bread.

[Anonymous]

Put some honey on it!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Maybe I will try it again. The texture came out perfect but the flavor is a bit flat. Anyone have a favorite recipe. The bakery challahs seem sweeter to me

Maybe add a half cup of sugar

[Anonymous]

I want to also add: pretty much everyone has mixed up tsp and tbsp at some point. It happens, it's annoying but it's not worth beating yourself up over it. People on Bake Off who are better bakers than we'll ever be make mistakes like that sometimes.

[Anonymous]

I love this recipe —https://food52.com/recipes/38241-jessica-fechtor-s-five-fold-challah

[Anonymous]

Challah is not supposed to be a sweet bread. You can always add a glaze on top to add sweetness.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I want to also add: pretty much everyone has mixed up tsp and tbsp at some point. It happens, it's annoying but it's not worth beating yourself up over it. People on Bake Off who are better bakers than we'll ever be make mistakes like that sometimes.

I have also seen tsb for tablespoon.