Challah braids melding together

I am trying to make Challah using this recipe, and the bread tastes good, but the braids are melding together like this:

What is going on here? I am kneading using the slap-and-fold technique without adding any extra flour, and I am testing the gluten formation using the window pane test. I am a novice baker, so I cannot rule anything out though. I am withholding some flour to use while shaping, but I usually have about 1/4-1/2 cup left over. Is the dough too moist?

I have posted this gallery showing some of the process, so hopefully that is helpful. Thanks!

baking

Best Answer

There's nothing wrong with your dough, it looks like you are getting a good rise out of it, which is what you want. I can't see you wanting to mess with success.

What you need to do is adjust your rolling and braiding technique to take into account how much rise you are going to get. Try rolling out your braids a bit thinner and braiding them much looser, this will give the bread more space to expand. If you need a shorter and wider end result try a 5 strand braid instead of a 3. It may take a few tries to get it right but practice in this case is perfect.

It looks like you've got a heat problem from your picture, one of your loaves is torched! If you are using a fan oven turn the fan off and use a non-fan mode, or if that's not possible try creating a wind-break with a piece of tin foil to keep your loaves out of the direct path.

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How do you keep challah from splitting?

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.

Why does my challah spread out?

All can be seen and obtained on my website. If they spread like that before baking, it's often also the dough: is your dough very very soft to handle, almost like cotton? With no real form? Then you need to toughen it a bit more; use a bit less water and a bit more flour.

Why did my challah come out dense?

Generally the reasons for a dense loaf are that the dough is too dry and/or inadequate gluten development.

Do you let challah rise after braiding?

Loosely braiding your dough as opposed to tightly braiding it will lessen the visibility of cracks and prevent them, but allowing your dough to rise until it is ready is the real remedy. How do you know when it's risen enough? Simple. The fingertip bread method.

Learn How to Plait or Braid a Six Stranded Challah Bread

Sources: Stack Exchange - This article follows the attribution requirements of Stack Exchange and is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.

Images: Derek Dolro, Martin Kirigua, Kampus Production, Artem Podrez