Challah with pre-ferment

Jewish sweet-bread with polish.

Notes

This is a straight dough and quite dense, so no autolyse is necessary. This bread is traditionally plaited. If you're making large loafs, I would recommend a 3 strand plait. This recipes source has recently put it behind a paywall so consider this one pirated.

Glaze with a mix of egg whites and milk after shaping and before baking. You're aiming for around #802b00 at its darkest points and a hollow sounding base.

Classically, the polish (also known as "poolish" or "Vienna bread") was baked using only a preferment for leavening although now it is common to use yeast in addition to the preferment. This can be done and at any level up to a maximum of an additional 1.5%. Pre-ferment should be mixed in advance (temp from mixer 25°) and rested for 3h minimum (at 25°) or 16h minimum refrigerated (at 4°). The polish here is 69% hydration and makes up 15% of the flour weight. It is taken from Raymond Calvel's "Taste of Bread". The isolated polish can be found on this site for reference.

Ingredients

	Bakers %	500g total	1kg total	2kg total	3kg total	4kg total
Polish Flour	15%	42	85	169	254	339
Polish Water	10.35%	29	58	117	175	234
Polish Salt	0.3%	0.85	1.69	3.39	5	7
Polish Yeast	0.15%	0.42	0.85	1.69	2.54	3.39
White Flour	85%	240	480	960	1441	1921
Water	14.65%	41	83	166	248	331
Egg	25%	71	141	282	424	565
Honey	16%	45	90	181	271	362
Neutral Oil	12%	34	68	136	203	271
Salt	0.7%	2	4	8	12	16

Percentage total: 177%
Values have been rounded where the error would not be significant (p < 0.05).

Last compiled at 2025-09-07 19:30:27.390643