Appears in Cook's Illustrated May/June 2019
Ritual and muscle memory have carried this soft, rich Jewish loaf through generations. A change in technique made the dough perfect for novice bread bakers.
To make challah dough that was moist but malleable, we combined a short rest during kneading with a long fermentation; this built a sturdy but stretchy gluten network that made the dough easy to handle. We also employed a dough-mixing techn...