Braided bread: how to prevent ropes from springing back
I've been making challah regularly for years and would like to find a way to make the ropes longer before braiding so the end result can be a longer loaf, but they always shrink up. I've read that letting the dough rest will accomplish this but I have not had luck with that. My challah is always delicious and I'm happy with my recipe. I just want to have more flexibility in forming the loaves.
My method: I use a bread machine "dough only" cycle. I use either all AP unbleached flour, or half AP flour - half whole wheat flour.(I adjust the amount of water accordingly to make sure the dough isn't too dry.)
To make a rope, I either roll it on a floured board, or I hold it in the air and roll between my two hands.
How can I get the ropes to not spring back?
Best Answer
Patience, my friend!
If your dough springs back, you are in fact doing everything right. A good dough will be elastic, that means you can stretch the ropes to a certain point and beyond that, it will return to the original length - and after that, start tearing. If you leave the dough alone for a few minutes, the gluten strands in the dough will relax a bit, allowing you to stretch the ropes longer. Rinse and repeat...
Now I can see why working in intervals over, say, twenty minutes is not what you want. We want to get things done and probably have other stuff to do, right? But there are a few things that help:
- Don't start with balls of dough, but with longish rolls. Take your dough portion for a strand, flatten slightly and roll it up lengthwise. If the dough is still flexible, hold your (left) thumb parallel to the long axis and (with the right hand) pull the dough over it section by section and seal the edge by pushing down. This will give you an even narrower strip to start with. (I posted some pictures in another answer, but work lengthwise, not crosswise as in that answer)
- Alternate working on the individual strands. Always roll one only until you get just to the border where it starts to spring back, then take the next. By the time you are through your three / five / ... strands, the first will have relaxed enough to allow more stretching. Bonus: it's a lot easier to get all strands to the same length.
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Why does braided bread pull apart when baking?
The oven temperature is too high, resulting in a dry oven where the challah \u201cgrows\u201d too fast. You can easily fix this by placing an oven thermometer in your oven to make sure it's calibrated correctly. The temperature of house, draft, and a temperature drop where you are rising the dough can also make a difference.How do you roll dough into long ropes?
2 AnswersLearn How To Three Strand Flat Braid A Single Rope
More answers regarding braided bread: how to prevent ropes from springing back
Answer 2
I am surprised to hear that you are rolling your ropes. All the traditional bakers I know don't roll them, they pull them. It is not a strong pulling motion like kansui noodles, it is more of a special "milking" motion which both twists and pulls at the same time. It is done repeatedly, starting with a ball and ends with a long uniform rope - you need practice for the "uniform" part though. It has the advantage of actually aligning the gluten sheets, letting them shear along each other.
If you try it that way, I'd say the most important thing is to not try to do it in one pull. With each stroke/twist motion, you only add a few centimeters before moving your fingers back to where you started and repeating. Resting is good before you start, but not necessary between the motions unless one part starts tearing through.
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Images: Carl Adrian Barcelo, Artem Beliaikin, Samson Katt, Laura James