This recipe is courtesy of celebrated author Isa Chandra Moskowitz, whose website Post Punk Kitchen is full of mouth-watering vegan recipes.
Vegan Challah
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What gives this challah its, uh, challyness, is a few factors. For the colour, a little turmeric does the trick. Don’t worry, you can’t taste it! Coconut oil is the magic that brings butter-iness. And bananas add a slight sweetness, as well as standing in for the leavening of the eggs, producing a beautiful puffy loaf. It’s a modern miracle! I hope you’ll give these loaves a shot! They’re definitely a bit of work for a special occasion, but they are so very worth it, whether you grew up with challah or not.
Ingredients
- 360 ml water
- 6 g ground turmeric
- 120 ml refined coconut oil
- 90 g sugar
- 80 ml warm water
- 18 g additional sugar
- 2 1/2 tablespoons dry active yeast 2 very over ripe bananas 1050 g all-purpose flour, plus extra for kneading
- 18 g salt
- FOR BRUSHING:
- 30 ml pure maple syrup
- 30 ml plain non-dairy milk (I use almond)
- 36 g poppy seeds
Instructions
- Add water and turmeric to a small sauce pot. Bring to a boil. Keep an eye so that it doesn’t boil too long and evaporate. Immediately turn off the heat. Add the coconut oil and 90 g sugar to the pot, and stir to melt the coconut oil. You want the mixture to cool so that it isn’t hot to the touch, but is still warm. So let it sit while you work on the rest of the recipe.
- In a very large mixing bowl, mix together the warm water and the remaining sugar. Sprinkle in the yeast and set aside to get all yeasty. Note: make sure that the mixing bowl is large enough to hold all of the flour and additional ingredients for this recipe, because this is where you’ll be mixing everything.
- In a separate bowl, mash the bananas very well, until they appear pureed. The coconut oil mixture should be cooled enough now, so proceed with the recipe.
- Add the mashed banana to the yeast bowl, along with the coconut oil mixture. Give a stir just to combine. Begin adding the flour a cup at a time, adding the salt along with the first cup. Mix after each addition, and begin to knead with your hands when a dough starts to form. Once all of the flour has been added, turn the dough out onto a lightly floured counter, and begin to knead like crazy for 10 minutes or until dough is nice and smooth. Add up more flour as needed, until the dough is no longer tacky. Form dough into a ball.
- Clean the mixing bowl, and lightly grease it with some canola oil. Add the ball of dough, spinning it into the bowl to get it lightly coated in oil. Cover with plastic wrap or a towel, and set aside to rise for about an hour and a half. It should double in size.
- Grease two baking sheets and set them aside. Also, make sure you have plenty of space for rolling out the ropes to create the braids. When dough has doubled, punch it down, knead lightly and divide in half. Take one half and divide it into thirds. Roll each third into a long rope, 18 inches or so. Now place the three ropes on the baking sheet the long way, and…braid! Pinch the ends together. Now create the second loaf in the same way. Let the loaves rise for about 30 minutes. They should get nice and puffy. No need to cover them for this part.
- When loaves have risen, preheat oven to gas mark 5. Mix together maple syrup and milk in a small container. Brush loaves with the mixture and sprinkle with poppy seeds.
- Bake breads on separate racks for about 40 minutes, rotating the pans between racks halfway through. Bread should be browned and golden outside. If you tap them, they should sound hollow. Let cool for a bit, maybe 30 minutes or so, and then they are ready to slice and serve! I love them warm and doughy like that. If not using immediately, wrap well in plastic and keep stored at room temperature for up to 2 days.
