The Fox in Charge of the Henhouse

One day I’ll escape from these posts on trivial food matters and write about something important. Still about food, mind you, but important nevertheless. But that day isn’t today.

Today is a story about finding one of my favorite foods, unearthing a recipe built on that food, and the inherent danger of putting me in charge of other people’s food.

Last night I found myself at a lectern with a microphone, standing in front of a room full of adults, and I was proclaiming my love of challah. This is a deep love that goes far back to grade school. But looking back I’m convinced the challot of my youth were for the most part nothing to get very excited about.

I undertook this speaking engagement because apparently I’m now in charge of something called the Challah Committee. I have no idea exactly how many challot I’ll be ordering every week, but it’s a lot of them. And I’ll be working with a local bakery that hands down makes the best challah I’ve had in the area.

This could be dangerous.

Part of me pictures this scene where I, like Gollum, am huddled with the racks of freshly backed loaves, hoarding them all to myself, naked and alone in a dark closet somewhere. But it’s relatively unlikely it will come to that. The real danger is much more sinister.

A good challah isn’t easy to find. Leah the Nosher may try to tell you that they are easy to make, although as a non-baker I’m not convinced. Still, some of hers are amazing (especially the slightly undercooked doughy ones) and one day she’ll inspire me to make one of my own.

Most of the challah I eat during the summer is sad stuff. Both the ones at Fresh Market and Hannaford come frozen and are thawed for my convenience. But even those are better than the fresh baked ones at Price Chopper. Don’t get me started about that bready monstrosity they sell at Bountiful Bread.

The only other decent specimens available locally are ones that are trucked up here from downstate. Being very polite, and promising regular visits from cute young children, for a while I was getting my challah as part of the shipment Ohav Shalom Apartments would receive from the Rockland Bakery. Saati in Latham also has challah from downstate, and it’s mighty fine too.

But the best locally is all the way out in Schenectady at the Mount Pleasant Bakery. And these are the good people I’ll be ordering from every week.

The only problem is that it’s a schlep to get out there, regardless of how great the bread. Which is why every year, I look forward to the school year starting up again, and being able to take advantage of the weekly deliveries to the synagogue.

Now here’s a secret. Even from a great bakery, not all challah is created equal.

To get the very best, like all things, you have to know how to pick a good one. Now perhaps there are some people who like their challah a little bit stiffer. God bless them. But the whole point of challah is for it to be rich and soft. And using your eyes and your hands you can generally find the blondest and most yielding loaf from a bunch. Just barely cooked, with braids that are still discrete and ropey, is my gold standard for the form.

I shouldn’t be telling you any of this. Especially since part of my responsibilities will be distributing the delivery of these delicious challot to those who have placed an order. It will be hard not to play favorites.

As I told the crowd from the podium, even if you don’t celebrate Shabbat, challah is excellent for eating out of hand, brilliant with butter, fabulous as French toast, and bodacious as bread pudding.

It was the bread pudding that made people perk up. So let me just say this quickly.

When I first got into cooking, I exclusively made desserts. Many of them were memorable. But especially memorable was a chocolate bread pudding I made for one Thanksgiving with Raf and ADS. I hit up one of Raf’s cookbooks and found a recipe from the Wolfgang Puck Cookbook that looked great.

Thanks to the magic of the Internet, I found two links to the recipe:
The shady link and the Google books link.

For the record, I omitted all the nuts and made a different sauce to go with the dessert. But besides that I followed the recipe and can vouch for its fabulous results.

What makes this different from any other bread pudding I’ve had, not to mention super decadent, is that the challah is soaked in heavy cream for THIRTY MINUTES. The bread simply breaks down when it’s mixed with the other ingredients. It creates a silky rich base for a custard made of cream and egg yolks, enriched with butter, and lightened with whipped egg whites.

My chest is tightening just thinking about it. Challah is dangerous stuff.