Keith Cohen, owner of the 100-year-old Orwasher’s Bakery on Manhattan’s Upper East Side, created this fruit and nut studded ‘Holiday Challah’ as a sweet and light-hearted way to celebrate the holiday season. This bread has a beautiful interior that is sprinkled with color from the dried fruit and pistachios. The Holiday Challah is great as toast with tea or coffee or — even better — slice it thinly and bake the slices on a sheet pan until crisp, making a biscotti-like treat.
Recipe courtesy of “Orwashers Artisan Bread – 100 Years of Techniques and Recipes” by Keith Cohen.
Fruit Cake Challah
The ultimate holiday mash-up.
- Total Time: 7 hours 53 minutes
- Yield: 4 loaves
Ingredients
- 1.9 lb/861.8 g bread flour
- 1.2 lb/544.3 g water
- 0.25 lb/113.4 g egg yolks
- 1 lb/45.36 g vegetable oil
- 0.05 lb/22.68 g sugar
- 0.04 lb/18.14 g salt
- 0.03 lb/13.61 g instant yeast
- 0.04 lb/18.14 g cranberries
- 0.5 lb/226.8 g golden raisins
- 0.35 lb/158.8 g pistachios
- 0.18 lb/81.65 g orange zest
Instructions
- Set up stand mixer with a dough hook. Place flour, water, egg yolks, oil, sugar and salt in mixing bowl.
- Mix on medium-low for 5 minutes, then mix on medium-high for 2 minutes.
- Add yeast.
- Mix on medium for an additional 6 minutes.
- Add cranberries, golden raisins, pistachios and orange zest. Mix on low until dry ingredients are combined into dough.
- Dough temperature should be between 76-78°F. Dough should appear shiny and pull away from the mixing bowl.
- Take the dough out of the mixing bowl and transfer to a lightly oiled airtight container. Let the dough rest on counter top for approx. 3 hours. Dough should double in size.
- Roll dough out of container onto a lightly floured work surface (marble or butcher block is ideal).
- Cut dough with a scraper into four even squares/rectangles, approx. 1.25 lb/567 g each. Shape each into a boule.
- Let dough rest 4 hours after shaping.
- Score and “X” in the top of the loaf.
- Preheat oven to 390°F.
- Bake for 33 minutes until lightly golden brown.
- Prep Time: 20 minutes + 7 hours resting
- Cook Time: 33 minutes
- Category: Bread
- Method: Baking
- Cuisine: Holidays
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