For centuries, challah has graced Jewish tables around the world on Shabbat and on holidays. That has not changed — but over time, some bakers have changed the ingredients and even the shape of the traditional braided loaves.
For instance, Lisa Schachter-Brooks of Oakland makes whole wheat challah and even gluten-free challah.
“A year ago, my husband developed a sensitivity to gluten. After experimenting, I discovered I could make yummy gluten-free challah, but when I added the extra flour needed to braid it, it didn’t taste too great,” she said. “Now I just don’t braid it. I call the loaves ‘gluten-free challah blobs.’ ”
Schachter-Brooks, 40, taught a workshop March 3 for Berkeley-based Wilderness Torah. Held in a private home in Oakland, the three-hour class was full, with eight participants attending.
“It was a wonderful experience,” said Schachter-Brooks, a member of the Wilderness Torah advisory board. “I felt like I was able to integrate the traditional Jewish act of baking challah with talking about how we access our food and what nutritional choices we make.”
The class was the kickoff event for the Wilderness Torah’s new Hebrew Homesteading series, which includes classes on how to make candles, pickles and matzah ball soup, along with an event in the Oakland hills titled “Edible and Medicinal Plant Walk.” For more information, visit www.wildernesstorah.org and click on “programs.”
Julie Wolk, founding co-director of Wilderness Torah, said organizers of the two-year-old nonprofit noticed that “homesteading” topics were cropping up often at the group’s outings and events.
“So we decided to contact people in the community with these same skills who could reinvigorate Jewish traditions and help others live closer to the cycles of nature,” she said. “Lisa’s challah workshop was a great success. Everybody learned to make healthy challah in a comfortable, home atmosphere.”
In addition to ingredients and recipes, Schachter-Brooks’ workshop also covered the spiritual aspects of baking challah.
“We talked about the special blessing for challah, and I talked about the spiritual practice of separating out a small portion of the dough as was done in the early days in the temple,” she said. “We didn’t burn the portion, though. We made a group decision to compost it — a different way of offering it to the earth.”
“I loved the class, and I will be repeating the experience, making challah with my girls, who are 3 and 6,” said one of the workshop attendees, Serena Heaslip, 42, of Kensington. “Gathering around the challah from the class enriched the start of Shabbat so much — this will be a new ritual for my family.“
Schachter-Brooks is known for a specific challah recipe that uses whole wheat flour.
“It’s my signature challah,” she said. “I make it for my synagogue, Chochmat HaLev in Berkeley, every week and also for some dear friends who happen to be neighbors. Granted, whole wheat challah doesn’t look like big, fluffy, white challah, but by now, we’re all accustomed to it this way.”
Before 2008, Schachter-Brooks had never baked bread of any sort. Like her mother before her, she wasn’t much of a baker.
“Making bread is not just about mixing ingredients. Besides, challah is a complex chemical combination of ingredients, and I’m not a detail-oriented person,” Schachter-Brooks said, laughing.
One day, a friend gave her a challah recipe, and a few months later, Schachter-Brooks decided to try it. “The bread came out OK, and I decided to bake every week. That was in January 2008,” she said.
Now she bakes challah every week. A former partner in a travel business, Schachter-Brooks now teaches Hebrew school part time. “Right now I have flexible work hours, so I am able to bake,” she said. Her husband, Brian Schachter-Brooks, 42, is the musical director and meditation director at Chochmat HaLev. They have a 5-year-old son, Eidan.
From the beginning, Schachter-Brooks chose not to use white flour or processed white sugar. “When my son was 21⁄2, I saw how eating white challah made him loopy, and I wanted to find a healthy alternative,” she said. Schachter-Brooks buys organic wheat berries from a farmers market and grinds them into flour, which she mixes with some store-bought whole-wheat flour.
Baking a challah takes time. Making the dough takes about 40 minutes. Then the dough rises two hours before being punched down and left alone to rise a second time. Then Schachter-Brooks braids the loaves (unless she is making gluten-free loaves) and allows the bread to sit a bit. Then it goes into the oven.
“While I knead the dough, I use that as a time for meditation, kneading some healing prayers into the dough,” Schachter-Brooks said. “Sometimes that period of time is the quietest 10 minutes of my week.”
Hebrew Homesteading is a new series offered by Wilderness Torah. For more information, visit www.wildernesstorah.org and click on
“programs,” or call (415) 786-3049.
Whole Wheat Challah
Modified by Lisa Schachter-Brooks
1 Tbs. unrefined sugar
1⁄2 cup warm water
1 package yeast
1⁄4 cup coconut oil
1⁄4 cup olive oil
1⁄4 cup honey
1⁄2 cup warm water
2 tsp. sea salt or mineral salt
2 eggs (really good eggs from a local farm) or 2 Tbs. flax meal mixed with 6 Tbs. water
4 cups flour, white or wheat
1 egg white beaten with 1 tsp. water
poppy and/or sesame seeds
Dissolve sugar in 1⁄2 cup warm water in large mixing bowl that has been rinsed with hot water. Sprinkle yeast on top of water-sugar mixture. Cover bowl and let stand 10 minutes.
Combine coconut oil, olive oil, honey, 1⁄2 cup warm water, salt, eggs and half of the flour. Mix well. Add yeast mixture. Stir in remaining flour. Dough should be sticky. Cover dough and let rest for 10 minutes.
Turn out onto a floured board and knead for 10 minutes, adding flour if needed. Place dough in a greased bowl. Cover with a damp towel and let rise in a warm place until double in bulk, about 11⁄2 to 2 hours. Punch down, cover and let rise again until double, about 45 minutes.
Divide dough into 3 equal parts. Shape into strands. Place on a lightly greased baking sheet and braid loosely. Fasten ends securely. Cover with a damp cloth and let rise until double. Brush with beaten egg yolk and sprinkle with seeds.
Bake in a preheated 380-degree oven for 20 to 30 minutes (temperature and time depends on oven) until golden brown.
Note from Lisa: I use 3 cups of freshly ground whole wheat flour (by grinding whole wheat berries in a Vitamix or grain grinder) and 1 cup of store-bought whole wheat flour. You may add any proportion of freshly ground or store-bought whole wheat or white flour that you choose.
Gluten-Free Challah
Adapted from “A Taste of Challah” by Tamar Ansh
1 Tbs. unrefined sugar
13⁄4 cup warm water
1 Tbs. powdered yeast
2 cups brown rice flour
1 cup tapioca
1⁄4 cup honey
1 tsp. salt
1⁄4 cup coconut oil and 1⁄4 cup olive oil, combined
2 tsp. xanthan gum
1 tsp. vinegar (I use apple cider vinegar)
1 egg
2 egg whites
Dissolve unrefined sugar in warm water and add yeast. Set aside for 10 minutes to bubble. In large bowl, mix together brown rice flour, tapioca, honey, salt, coconut oil, olive oil, xanthan gum, vinegar, egg and egg whites.
Add yeast mixture, blending well. Let dough rise until double in size (about 1 to 2 hours). Bake in a preheated 380-degree oven until browned — about 20 minutes.
Note from Lisa: This dough is too goopy to braid, so I make “challah blobs.” Just spoon multiple blobs onto a greased baking sheet.