As a professional baker and cookbook author of a Jewish holiday baking book, it’s not surprising I receive alot of mail regarding making quintessential challah. I am honoured that people often seek my guidance, for what is more core in Jewish baking, that this queenly bread? There are so many challah recipes one could do; I confess: I create a new one on the drop of a hat but as is often the case, the best challah to me, is the one of my memory. It is a challah I shared with my maternal grandmother, eons ago and it has as much to do with challah as it does with something challah-related: Shabbat candle lighting.

Like most kids, I adored my grandmother who came to visit us most weekends, staying over from Friday to Sunday nights. Then my Uncle Harry, my mother’s brother, would come take her and she would return to live with him, my Aunt and their son, my first cousin.

But one day, as I arrived home from school, there was a surprise. I discovered that my grandmother had come came to live with us permanently. No more extended visits or weekends, this time, she was staying for good. There was more – she was sharing my room. That was no problem – in fact – it was a good thing. As the youngest child in a house that for many reasons contained more than its share of neglect, chaos and some frankly scary family dynamics, her coming to visit was, to me, more than welcome news.

Like most grandmothers, mine was equally warm and comforting, and this was a tonic in and of itself. Getting used to sharing my room with her was also just fine by me. I was just young enough to still be delighted to have a room-mate and one who never tired of my after school chatter at that.

However, there was one difference between her and other grandmothers: my grandmother was blind – and had been so most of her life – certainly by the time she was 20 or so and newly married. She could barely remember seeing – could not recall what my mother (or any of us) looked like, or the colour of grass or the red wine of a new bottle of Manischewitz Concord Grape wine. As her sighted family, we were all schooled in her blindness and took special care.
Gates were installed in the house, we had extra housekeepers and her radio – was her constant, audio companion. I got used to hearing the hockey game and operatic radio specials played extra loud.

When you live alongside someone who is blind, you learn, like a sighted shadow, to anticipate them and their movements. Unconsciously, you become a perceptive guide, coming forward and offering help or retiring as they manage themselves. You learn to never to force anything but wait until they ask for assistance . Or you simply offer an arm and wait. You never drag or lead or pull a bind person. This attentiveness becomes an innate physical skill – one that is tethered to an organic sense of another person’s needs.

More traditional than anyone I had ever experienced, and truly spiritual, my grandmother, blindness notwithstanding, was a strong influence in my life in subtle ways that in the end, were not so subtle – and certainly enduring. It was counterpointed with the fact that she was a most undemanding, self-effacing woman. A peaceful sort, she only had one insistence. This was that each Friday, regardless of season, that I light her Sabbath candles, a poignant request between a blind Bubbie and a reluctant granddaughter. Why reluctant? We had no traditions in our home – indeed, we rarely ate as a family at the table – and kashruth? That was something out of books or synagogue –something other people did and knew about. Not us. Suffice to say – lighting candles struck me as unduly religious and I balked – with sullen looks, impatience, titching tongue and an overall lack of haste in getting the matches. Nevertheless, I did as I was asked – setting up the candles, lighting them, extinguishing the match oh-so-carefully and then would wait. I watched as her hands, like the wings of a dove, made the ancient motion over the candles, and then she would, in as fine an operatic voice as I have ever heard since, sing the Sabbath prayer. She did not close her eyes, as I do now, when I light candles. Instead, she looked directly forward, towards the flames, her see-nothing and yet see-everything eyes gazing into time itself. Sometimes, she faltered and then she would simply ask, “Marcy, please point me toward the light”. I obliged, gently holding her shoulders and pivoting her slowly to face the solid brass candlesticks where the twin flames burned like beacons of faith – even in such darkness of a lost sense (her sight) and lost awareness (an untutored 7 year old).

My grandmother and I were alone in those Sabbath moments - no other adult to even ask why I was allowed to light matches – totally unsupervised although no doubt, divinely blessed. My grandmother sang the blessing in her pure, rich, perfect pitch voice while I stood by her side, twitchy, fascinated, respectful, and impatient. All of it. I remember the scent of the candles, the slight sulphur of the matches knowing full well I probably should not been using them and coveting the illicitness of those stolen moments. I had no idea what my grandmother sang – although now I know the prayers in my sleep. But is spite of that, I found her mystic; in spite of her blindness, I knew she had a unique vision, but one I was not yet ready to share. Sometimes, my grandmother said, despite her blindness, she could just barely make out two pin points of light, the flicker of the two candles as they glowed. To this day, I wonder if she spoke the truth of fibbed to comfort me and make my efforts a bit more worthwhile.

My grandmother has been gone some time and it seems a lifetime ago since I was someone’s granddaughter. In fact, my own mother is now my grandmother’s age (which means I too, have travelled on). But the intervening years had an effect – proof that time is not just quantitative. If I could, I would let my grandmother know, in some way, her customs and subsequent requests of me were not for naught. But I have no doubt she somehow knows that I have come to see the merits of ritual, if not of religion. Now a parent of my own three sons, I chose to offer a crafted, cobbled together but definitely traditional sphere of Jewish life. I suppose mine, like many of my peers, is a strange salad of the usual, the diverse and the exotic, all brought to the table, in my life, my work. How I turned out, and what my choices are, are in the very way I knead the challah dough, my preference for fresh yeast, and my hankering to change it all with a hint of vanilla or unseemly penchant for coca cola in the honey cake or just as often, to partake of the bread that is from the table of another. I love customs, traditions and ritual; I am just a little less sure about what happens when it goes from feeling special and grounded to feeling divisive and insular.

As life evolves and it swirls sometimes, in a prism of past, present and future, I often think of my grandmother and my days as her resistant lighter of the Sabbath tapers. How I wish my grandmother could but have a peek at me now – how she would adore my boys and they her. In fact, they have gone from little grandsons –the age I was when my grandmother came to live with me, to young men. One even makes his own challah, albeit with a bread machine head start. And today’s grandmothers are another vintage altogether. Here I am, almost one myself and I am still racing of to tango class (leaving challah doing a long, leisurely cold rise).

This all said, I have a hunch my grandmother would be gratified to know I am a part of a whole tapestry she helped weave. But I am sure the scent of the fresh baked challah finds it way to paradise. Some Fridays, especially on a cold, mid-winter night, it seems the candles glow extra bright. And in those moment, with that special perfume of sulphured matches, yeast and too-sweet wine, I am certain, wherever my grandmother is, I would no longer have to turn her toward the light.

On that note, I am delighted to share a quarter of my own favorite challah recipes – for your Friday night or anytime for challah is always (except on Passover!), welcome.

Classic Friday Night Challah
Bread Machine Challah

Classic Friday Night Challah
This is the quintessential, traditional challah: feathery, moist, light, golden - almost velvety but with that grew ‘chew’ factor that you want in any bread. A great starter recipe and the one I come back to over and over again.

1 1/2 cups warm water
2 tablespoons instant yeast
2 3/4 teaspoons salt
1/3 cup sugar
3 eggs
1/2 cup oil
6-8 cups bread flour

Egg wash
1 egg
1 yolk
Sesame seeds for sprinkling

Line a doubled up baking sheet with parchment paper. If using a loaf pan, use two 9 by 5 inch loaf pans or one 10 by 5 inch pan, and generously spray with non-stick cooking spray.

In a large bowl, stir yeast and water together and let stand a few minutes. Then add in a cup of the flour and stir. Then add in remaining ingredients, holding back about one third of the flour so that you mix everything well. Then, using dough hook, knead on slow speed, add in more flour as required, to make a soft dough, knead 8-10 minutes, until dough is soft but elastic. Gather dough together in mixer and spray with non-stick cooking spray. Cover entire mixer with a huge plastic bag and let dough rise 45-60 minutes or until almost doubled in size. (A cool rise is fine too).

Gently deflate dough and turn out onto a lightly floured work surface. Divide in three portions. Let rest 10 minutes and then form into three balls that you put in the loaf pan or, roll portions into three ropes and braided, as for a braided loaf. Place on the prepared baking sheet.

Spray the loaf with non-stick cooking spray and cover loosely with a large plastic bag. Let rise until almost doubled and then glaze with egg wash.

Sprinkle on sesame seeds.

Preheat oven to 375 F. Place in oven, reducing temperature to 350 F. Bake until done, about 35-50 minutes.

Cool well before serving.

BreadMachine Challah
Bread machine dough – Oven baking – what could be more simple . Do not bake this recipe in the machine – it is too large. It is a recipe that uses the bread machine as your little helper for dough mixing and rising. But the oven ensures you have a traditional, fragrant loaf. The recipe is for 1 1/2 pound capacity machines. This is a terrific starter challah for newbies and it is still, in its own right, a superb challah even if you make it by hand or with a mixer and dough hook.

Dough
1 cup warm water (approx. 100 F.)
2 3/4 teaspoons salt
1/3 cup sugar
2 eggs
1/2 cup vegetable oil

4 1/4 to 5 1/5 cups bread flour
1 tablespoon instant yeast

Egg wash
1 egg
1 yolk

sesame seeds for sprinkling (optional)

Place water, salt, sugar, eggs and oil and all but 1/2 cup of the flour into machine pan in the order prescribed by the manufacturer.

Process on “dough” cycle.

Dust in additional flour as dough forms into a ball and seems wet enough to receive remaining flour. Usually, it takes all the flour, but holding some back as the dough matures through kneading results in a better mixture. You will also notice that on humid days, the recipe will absorb a larger amount of flour. This is normal.

Divide dough into three sections and braid into a loaf.

Line a baking sheet with baking parchment. Place bread on sheet. Generously brush bread with egg wash. Sprinkle on sesame seeds. Place whole baking sheet into a large plastic bag (this is your proofer tent).

Allow bread to rise 30 to 40 minutes (until almost doubled). Brush again with egg wash.

Preheat oven to 375 F.

Place bread in oven, reduce heat to 350 F. and bake 30-35 minutes.

Marcy Goldman is a professional pastry chef, and author of several baking books, including The 10th Anniversary Edition of A Treasury of Jewish Holiday Baking (Whitecap Books) and the upcoming The Baker’s Four Seasons (Harper Collins 2011). She also has a kosher cuisine column at www.Clabbergirl.com and hosts the long-standing baking site, www.BetterBaking.com