Thank you for the recipe! What a great looking bread! Your pictures are some of the best on this site too. And, it doesn't hurt that you really seem to know your way around a kitchen either!

Hi yes I have used the Bread Machine Yeast in the Challah. They call it rapid rise but it is more like Acitve Dry. Yeast is SO confusing !! This will make 3 braids. There are lots of great YouTube videos of braids. Your DD will love looking at some of them for ideas :) Challah is the perfect bread for grilled cheese sandwiches...never will you find better ! It is also wonderful for French toast and croutons when it gets stale. Bread pudding also. Can't go wrong with Challah. I do have a good whole wheat . I will get it out and type it in. You really need to get your starter going and then make SD with a soaker...that means you take the whole grains and soak them overnight. It accomplishes several things. The most important is that the grains are way more digestible and also you get so much more nutrition from the flours and grains when they interact with the enzymes in the SD and you retard the loaves overnight for the bake the next day. The price for Bob's Red Mill on Amazon is great ! You can also sign up for the regular shipments to save even more. They have the bulk yeast too and all is free shipping. Walmart has the best buttermilk. It is called Bulgarian Buttermilk and has more good bacteria in it . Very thick and wonderful. You can use the powdered or just add vinegar or lemon to milk but it isn't nearly as tasty or thick. I have some great rye breads. Will add those too. Please take a look at Wild Yeast Blog..she has a lot of breads that aren't sourdough also . c

Although it seems like a forgiving dough - I can taste that I cheated on the overnight ferment. Sorry your casserole dishes aren't big enough. I bake in a toaster oven so when my bread rises it burns on top. Another reason P a L'A is good - it spreads out more than up. I brush the bread with some slightly salty water right before it goes in the oven. But I lose that lovely floury rustic surface. Do you have a pizza stone? That helped me get a better crust back when I last had an oven - now I use it in my grill to make pitas. Also I read somewhere or another about using a SS restaurant dish lid as a cloche though I've never seen one large enough. I am currently jealously watching a neighbor build a stone wood-fired bread oven by his pond - the ultimate bread oven. He says he will advise me when I am ready to build one - and I definitely do not lack for rocks. However right now my 'yard' is festooned with logs, brush and firewood piles. Hopefully in the near future the logs will become a woodshed and I can move the firewood inside. Then maybe a bread oven - which will entail moving rocks. I'm tired just thinking about it all. Making some tea and toast and taking a nap.

ohiomom - Not having made the recipe you posted, but comparing it to the Pillsbury recipe, I'd certainly try it at a lower temperature. You might lower it by 25°F and check the results, then lower it another 25°F the next time, etc., until you get the results you want. I probably wouldn't lower it below 350°F. You'd also want to test the loaf for doneness by using an instant read thermometer - between 190-200°F. The loaves in the Pillsbury book look like traditional, high-rising, domed top loaves. Your loaf looks like it has a nice crumb, but it also looks like it didn't rise properly or deflated from over-proofing, perhaps due to the adjustment of the salt. In your recipe, I think I'd use at least 2 to 2-1/2 t. of salt for that amount of flour/yeast. I believe the minimum "average" amount of salt in yeast breads is 1/3 t. per 1 cup of flour. When you divide that much sodium per serving, it's actually very little sodium per 1-ounce slice of bread. Salt adds a lot of flavor, but if you're like me, I've eliminated a lot of dietary sodium, so less is best for my tastebuds. "Old" recipes do tend call for more salt than I typically use, and I adjust them according to my tastebuds. The rule of thumb is, when you adjust the salt in a yeast bread recipe, adjust the yeast by an equal amount. For instance, if you reduce the salt by 50%, then adjust the yeast by that much as well. But as with all "rules" concerning breadmaking, there is always a way to break the rules and breadmaking is all about contridictions. There are many ways and techniques to make bread, and bread is quite individual. How many of us have made a loaf of bread and accidently left the salt out of it entirely, and still got a loaf of bread.... Salt has these functions in yeast breads, so if you reduce or increase salt, you may affect these things from the science perspective. 1. tightens gluten 2. enhances flavor 3. slows yeast activity 4. controls bacterial growth For those of you who lack a pilot light to warm your oven for proofing dough, check the temperature of your oven with a thermometer (with the door closed, light on, and 20 minutes to warm up). I've noted in my oven it stays a perfect 80-85°F - in the farthest corner away from the light. It's too warm close to the light or in the middle of the oven. But to contradict bread "rules" again, dough rises just fine at much colder temperatures, it just takes longer than when using an optimum temperature and optimum humidity. Cold rises actually contribute a lot of flavor to bread. -Grainlady