Year of the Tiger 🐯
It’s Lunar New Year! Which means we have a few days of holiday to celebrate and stay with our families. Usually during the New Year holiday, people will visit others’ homes for New Year’s greetings. However, as the COVID-19 situation is getting out of control (yes, again) here in Hong Kong, people are advised to reduce or even avoid gatherings. So it means time to experiment with new sourdough recipes! I posted this plain Sourdough Challah recipe last year, also during Lunar New Year. 😝 Given that this year is the Year of the Tiger, I made this Tiger Sourdough Challah Bread with turmeric and chocolate flavored dough.
What is Challah?
The word challah originally meant only the small portion of dough that was put in the oven when baking bread as a reminder of the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem. It has evolved into the twisted, sweet, almost brioche-like bread that was brought to America by immigrants from Central and Eastern Europe. Souce: NYT Cooking.
Traditional challah is made with eggs, oil, flour, yeast, salt and water. Therefore, in order to make it vegan, the only thing I need to veganize is the egg part. There are a lot of egg substitute options for baking. However, to my surprise, the best option here is just substituting egg with soy milk.
Yudane Method 💦
This vegan sourdough challah have the texture that resemble most Japanese bread – super soft and fluffy. As I learned more about sourdough baking over the past year, I came across the Yudane Method. Yudane method is the secret to make a soft and fluffy Japanese style bread. In order to bake using this method, you simply mix an equal portion of flour and boiling water. The effect of adding boiling water to flour is that it gelatinises the starch. The gelatinised starch will allow the starch to absorb more water, and thus enhancing the sweetness of the bread.
Yudane method is in fact similar to the Tangzhong method I used in my sourdough milk bread recipe. Unlike the 1:1 flour-to-water ratio in Yudane method, the Tangzhong mixture is made by heating up a mixture of flour and water in the ratio of 1:5 to 65°C.
For more sourdough recipe using Yudane method, check out my vegan sourdough shokupan and sourdough cinnamon roll recipe.
Stiff Levain
In this recipe, I used a 50% hydration lievito madre as the stiff levain. The main reason of using stiff levain in this recipe is to reduce the sourness in the bread. You can of course convert your 100% hydration sourdough starter to a 50% hydration starter if you don’t have lievito madre. You can learn how to convert your starter by following the recipe below. If you are using lievito madre, remember to refresh at least 3 times (4 hours apart) before using it. You will need 180g of lievito madre for this recipe.
Baking Schedule
4pm: Prepare Levain
8pm: Mix the dough
8:30pm: Retard in fridge
Next day
8:30am: Braid the challah and proceed to final proof
12:30pm: BAKE!
Tiger Sourdough Challah Bread (Turmeric + Chocolate)
Course: SourdoughCuisine: JewishDifficulty: Medium10
servings30
minutes25
minutesThe Vegan Sourdough Challah is so buttery soft and fluffy, definitely the perfect bread for breakfast!
Ingredients
- Main Dough
190g bread flour
90g spelt flour* (or sub bread flour)
All yudane dough (from below)
180g stiff levain (from below) or Lievito madre
38g agave syrup
6g sea salt
100g soy milk
50g soften vegan butter (I used the cultured butter from Miyoko’s)
- For Turmeric Dough
- For Chocolate Dough
25g dark chocolate
20g soy milk
- Yudane
100g bread flour
100g boiling water
- Stiff Levain (50% hydration)
80g bread flour
20g water
- “Egg” Wash
1 Tbsp maple syrup
1 Tbsp soy milk
Directions
- Mix all the ingredients of the stiff levain and leave it to rise until doubled or even tripled. It usually takes 3-4 hours at 82°F (28°C).
- While you are waiting for the stiff levain to rise, add 100g boiling water to 100g bread flour. Leave it aside to cool completely.
- Once the levain is ready to use, place all of the ingredients (except oil) into the bowl of your stand mixer. Using the hook attachment, knead for about 5 minutes until the dough comes together and forms a dough ball.
- Gradually add in softened vegan butter in 3 batches and continue knead for 10 – 15 more minutes or until reach window pane stage.
- Meanwhile, melt 25g dark chocolate in 20g soy milk using the double boiler method.
- Divide the dough into 2 equal halves, add 3g turmeric powder into one part of the dough. Mix until everything is incorporated.
- Now, mix the melted chocolate into the remaining dough ball. Again, mix until everything is incorporated.
- Shape the turmeric and chocolate dough into balls and place in a bowl. Cover and leave the dough in the fridge for 8 to 12 hours.
- The next morning, transfer the dough to a clean floured surface then divide each dough ball into 3 equal portions, which means you will now have a total of 6 portions (3 from turmeric dough and 3 from chocolate dough). Form each portion into a ball. Flatten with rolling pin. Roll each dough into a log, then shape it into a rope of about 16.5″ long.
- Braid the challah. I followed the instructions in this video.
- Carefully transfer the challah onto a lined baking tray. Brush with “egg” wash.
- Mark with a pencil about 1.5 cm away from the original size of the dough on both sides. Let it proof at a warm place until the dough rise double in size or when it reaches the mark. Mine took approximately 4 hours at 82°F (28°C).
- Preheat oven at 350°F (175°C). Brush with egg wash again.
- Bake in a preheated oven for about 35-40 minutes, or until golden brown. Rotate the tray halfway to ensure the challah is evenly baked.
- Remove challah from oven and let them cool on rack completely.
Notes
- * In this recipe, I use a small amount of spelt flour for the flavor. But feel free to use 100% bread flour if you wish.
