Recipe for fluffy challah -vinegar and baking soda???

Senior Member Joined: May 02 2008 Posts: 138

Someone told me that someone she knows made a yummy fluffy challah using vinegar and baking soda in the recipe? Has anyone ever heard of this or tried this recipe? Trying to stretch my five pounds!

Platinum Member Joined: May 07 2008 Posts: 8963

I don't see how vinegar and baking soda would work better than yeast to lighten the dough. Both methods produce carbon dioxode gas to leaven the dough, but yeast does so more slowly. You're better off kneading longer and letting the dough rise longer.
Fluffy bread dough is not just about producing more gas; it's about the texture of the dough itself. Better kneading yields a finer crumb and lighter texture; just pumping full of gas, which is what vinegar and soda will do, will likely result in large air pockets that will leave your challah with a coarse texture and big holes that look like a kitchen sponge at best. The rapid rising may also cause the dough to overinflate and then collapse like a burst balloon; fortunately, if this happens before the loaves are in the oven, you can reknead, reshape, and let rise again. I think. I don't really know what effect the vinegar-soda mix will have on the yeastie beasties.

Unless your friend made something that is not a traditional yeast-risen challah douigh but a soda-risen dough, what's called a "quick bread" because it doesn't require the rising time that yeast-risen doughs do. Do a search under "quick breads"--or better yet, ask the "someone" who told you for the name and phone number of the "someone she knows" and get the story straight from the horse's mouth.

ETA: Maybe she made something like Irish Soda Bread, though that would be hard to shape into a braided loaf. It has a rough outside texture and in no way resembles the traditional challah.

Here's one recipe for the kind of bread you may mean: http://earthnotes.tripod.com/soda-bread.htm.

Gold Member Joined: Nov 01 2010 Posts: 1687

Zaq - you are great! How do you know so much? And the way you put it Smile

Platinum Member Joined: May 07 2008 Posts: 8963

I read a lot. The cookbooks I've perused could fill a culinary school library. I've also been around the block a few times and know from--ouch-- personal experience what happens to a challah's texture when you don't knead long and strong enough (me) and when you do (ds, aka "Gonna Make Some Lucky Girl Very Happy Some Day").