{"id":316,"date":"2008-05-24T13:08:30","date_gmt":"2008-05-24T20:08:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/norwitz.net\/blog\/?p=316"},"modified":"2008-05-24T13:08:30","modified_gmt":"2008-05-24T20:08:30","slug":"gluten-free-vegan-challah","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/norwitz.net\/blog\/2008\/05\/24\/gluten-free-vegan-challah\/","title":{"rendered":"Gluten-Free Vegan Challah"},"content":{"rendered":"

We belong to a Shabbus potluck group that meets every month or two.\u00a0 Yesterday, it was at our home.\u00a0 Although Miriam (and I) can’t have gluten, traces aren’t an issue.\u00a0 Unfortunately, it’s not that way with egg.\u00a0 Even a little crumb can give her symptoms.<\/p>\n

Challah is a braided egg bread that plays an important role in the weekly Shabbat prayers.\u00a0 As you pray, you touch the bread, or touch someone touching it.\u00a0 Though of course I don’t have any or allow Miriam to eat it, that isn’t enough when it’s happening in my house.\u00a0 We can’t leave the crumbs and contaminated surfaces behind when people go home.\u00a0 And cleaning well often isn’t 100%.<\/p>\n

So I decided to make challah.\u00a0 Or at least a bread-like substance that was challah-like.\u00a0 Technically, challah should contain chametz (one of the 5 grains, also meaningful for Passover), but fortunately no one minded that it didn’t.<\/p>\n

I’m not much of a baker (i.e., I stink) so I just bought a mix.\u00a0 The bread a friend<\/a> made from Pamela’s Amazing Wheat-Free mix was so good, I got that one.<\/p>\n

Pamela\u2019s Amazing Wheat-Free Bread Mix<\/a>
\nINGREDIENTS: Sorghum Flour, Tapioca Flour, Sweet Rice Flour, Brown Rice Flour, Organic Natural Evaporated Cane Sugar, Chicory Root, White Rice Flour, Millet Flour, Honey and Molasses; Rice Bran, Sea Salt, Xanthan Gum, Yeast Packet.
\n1 slice of bread (1\/16th of loaf) has 25 usable grams of carbs (29 total minus 4 fiber).<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

As it happens, they even have a recipe for turning the mix into challah<\/a> on their website.<\/p>\n

We used the egg-free alternative directions but super-concentrated it.\u00a0 So for 3 eggs, I used 1\/2 cup of water and 4 tablespoons flaxmeal.\u00a0 We also made it dairy-free<\/p>\n

Recipe:<\/h2>\n

1 bag Pamela’s Wheat-Free Bread Mix
\nEquivalent of 3 eggs
\n1\/4 cup palm shortening, melted
\n1\/2 cup soy milk (use anything)
\n1\/4 cup sugar
\n1\/2 cup warm water
\n1 yeast packet (enclosed)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The recipe calls for a stand mixer, which we don’t have.\u00a0 It recommends a whisk attachment, which we do have on our stick blender.\u00a0 But that made the too-dry dough fly all over.\u00a0 Even adding some water didn’t help.\u00a0 So Michael mixed it by hand with a large whisk then kneaded it with his hands.<\/p>\n

Now the mixture was too sticky, so I added some brown rice flour as Michael kneaded.\u00a0 And it turned out glossy and smooth and really nice.\u00a0 It was so easy to handle I just braided it by hand instead of the plastic bag piping business the website recommends.<\/p>\n

I think I could have easily done a true braid, but I started easy\u00a0 by just making two long rolls and twisting them then sealing the ends.\u00a0 I did this on a floured (rice) cutting board then moved it (with a dough scraper) to a greased baking pan.<\/p>\n

\"Twisted<\/p>\n

I wanted to put sesame seeds on the outside, but didn’t have any.\u00a0 So I did a light sprinkling of some ground sesame salt we had.\u00a0 I didn’t do anything in place of the egg wash for the outside.<\/p>\n

I put this in the oven, turned it on to 150*F for a minute, then turned it off (it was a cool day), and let it rise for a little over an hour.\u00a0 Then we turned the oven on to 350*F and let it bake for one hour.\u00a0 The bottom got a bit over-brown, almost black, but was still edible, and the crust was strong and thick.\u00a0 The insides were soft and luscious.\u00a0 I didn’t do a good job sealing one of the ends.\u00a0 Also the two twists never really melded together and were like separate pieces of bread.<\/p>\n

\"Challah<\/p>\n

Our guests all loved the bread, though it didn’t really taste like challah and all of them were wheat-eaters.\u00a0 I’d gladly make it every week if it weren’t so carby.\u00a0 It’s definitely a winner for special occasions.\u00a0 I think dividing it into two loaves and baking it for less time would soften the crust while still cooking the insides.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We belong to a Shabbus potluck group that meets every month or two.\u00a0 Yesterday, it was at our home.\u00a0 Although Miriam (and I) can’t have gluten, traces aren’t an issue.\u00a0 Unfortunately, it’s not that way with egg.\u00a0 Even a little crumb can give her symptoms. Challah is a braided egg bread that plays an important […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[26,82,93,3,4,19],"tags":[7,6,8,83,77,5,12],"class_list":["post-316","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-food","category-grains","category-judaism","category-recipes","category-holidays","category-shabbus","tag-dairy-free","tag-egg-free","tag-gluten-free","tag-jewish-food","tag-photos-food","tag-vegan","tag-vegetarian"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/norwitz.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/316","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/norwitz.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/norwitz.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/norwitz.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/norwitz.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=316"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/norwitz.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/316\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":886,"href":"http:\/\/norwitz.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/316\/revisions\/886"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/norwitz.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=316"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/norwitz.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=316"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/norwitz.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=316"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}