Rosh Hashana cooking update

[xiphias]

Challah: finally decided to rise; two loaves now braided and rolled. (Yes, Rosh Hashana has round challot -- but you make them by making long braids then rolling the braids. The challot which are not braided but just rolled into rounds are for Sukkot, not Rosh Hashana)

Soup: Cooked for six hours, smells wonderful. Now to let it chill overnight which means that I'll be able to just pick the excess fat off the top before reheating.

Honey cake: cooling in bundt pan on rack. Not really wanting to come out of the bundt pan, and rather sticky and undercooked.

My main problem with baked goods is underbaking. I have this tendency to cook things until the eggs reach safe temperature but not much longer than that. So they end up really gooey.

This isn't so much of a problem for my gooey cheesecake or my gooey brownies (which tend to be eaten with a spoon instead of with fingers), and I don't know that it will be that serious a problem for honey cake, either. Maybe we'll be eating it with a spoon, but that's not really that bad, is it?

Tomorrow: make stuffing, cook veal, make spatzele, cook green beans, boil potatoes for soup, defrost store-bought kreplach. I wanted to make kreplach on my own, but that got cut for time.

Comments

[mattblum.livejournal.com]

I think the spiral vs. braided challah may be a function of your family and community. I was brought up that the spiral ("just rolled into rounds") challah was for Rosh Hashanah, and a Google search turned up over a dozen sites that agree with that.

OTOH, I've also seen people make braided round challah for Rosh Hashanah and spiral loaves for Sukkot (and for Shavuot, too). It seems to be highly variable, with the exception being that everyone agrees that Rosh Hashanah challah should be round (even if they disagree on whether or not it ought to be braided).

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

Shavuot gets challot with ladders on it. :)

[gingicat]

Yeah, I've bever heard of braiding-then-rolling either. Though ailsaek showed me a method I love to use for Rosh Hashanah (when I actually have time to bake... *sigh*); you roll out your dough into a long "snake", flatten the smake, sprinkle it with cinnamon and press raisins into it, then roll into a tube around the cinnamon raisins and *then* coil into a spiral. Comes out gorgeously.

[estherchaya.livejournal.com]

Um, so if you know that you're underbaking, can't you just leave it in the oven a few minutes more? Are you afraid that you'll overcook it? Don't be worried about that, just keep checking it.

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

The thing is, things keep baking after they're taken out of the oven. So you WANT to take them out slightly underdone -- but I keep taking them out slightly MORE underdone than I should.

If it's at the consistency you want, and still in the oven, it's overcooked.

[estherchaya.livejournal.com]

my point, though, is that you know that you consistently take it out more underdone than you should. Therefore, resist the urge for an extra 3-5 minutes and you should be fine.

[angelovernh.livejournal.com]

:nodding: I agree.. Or you could raise the temp. 15 degrees or so and bake for the same length of time.