Jewish Vegan Challah

Made this challah ( a type of Jewish Bread ) with onion soup and that was our lunch  few days back . As many must be knowing that  I am part of a group called HBC ( home-bakers-challenge)  an event started by Priya Suresh . In this event for the month of December we were given many interesting options by  Priya Ranjit  host of this month's .

 One of them was this Vegan Challah .  I have already made these lovely american-sugar-cookies  for the event and just couldn't resist trying out this Vegan Challah because it was made using Chick pea flour. This sounded very weird and interesting at the same time .

So planned to give it a try and I was really surprised with the resulting bread. The challah was perfectly soft very tasty.

 This Challah is the perfect entry for today's vegan-thursdays  where few of us bloggers post a Vegan recipe on the first and last thursday of the month .

 Original Recipe From : thesweetlifeonline

Ingredients :

1/2 cup.................. besan ( gram flour ) + 1/2 cup water
4 cups..................maida ( all purpose flour )
1/4 cup .................sugar
1 cup.....................water
1 n 1/2 tsp ..............dry active yeast
1/4 cup...................ground nut oil
salt

Method :


In a bowl mix yeast, 1 tsp sugar and 1 cup warm water and let it rest for 10 minutes.

The yeast mixture will rise and become foamy.

If the mixture doesn't rise means the yeast is not active and you will have to start again with new yeast.

Meanwhile in a blender blend besan and water till very frothy.

Add oil to it and continue to blend.

Now add the foamy yeast mixture and blend well.

Take this in a big bowl and gradully add maida to this mixture.

Continue kneading till all the maida is over.

Now knead for 8 to 10 more minutes till the dough is soft and non - sticky.

You may add some more maida to get the right texture. ( I had to use 2 to 3 extra spoons)

Oil the dough and keep it in a greased big bowl and let it rise for one hour .

Use a very big bowl and the dough rises considerably.

After one hour punch the dough and again let it rise for 30 minutes.

Now make three equal parts of the dough and roll them into 12 inch long strands.
Lay them straight and make a braid shape with these three strands.


Lift this braided dough and keep it in greased tin .

Brush the surface with milk and let the dough rise again for 45 minutes.

Bake in a preheated oven for half an hour or till the surface is firm and golden in color.

Serve with jam , chutney or even with a warm soup like I did.