Challah dough bread machine recipe issues

Question

I just got a 2lb kitchen in the box bread machine. I want to be able to make small batches of challah and found this recipe online that seemed a good size fit for my machine.

• 1 1/3 cups water
• 1 tsp salt
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1/4 + 2tsp oil
• 2 eggs
• 5 cups flour
• 1 tbsp instant yeast

So I put it in the machine and did the dough function which is 1:30. The dough rose to the top of the machine and was uber sticky. I used a fair bit of flour just to get it into strips which were still hard to work with. I made three braids and roll, which I tasted after baking. The roll was extremely airy and very bland. Not sweet, not salty, no flavor.

I assumed the issue was too much water. I also did not see why it needed so much oil or egg, as proportionally this seemed like a lot.

So I remade it as follows:

• 1 cup water
• 1.5 tsp salt
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1/4 cup oil
• 1.5 eggs
• 5 cups flour
• 1 tbsp instant yeast

This time it barely rose at all! It also seemed pretty dry. The opposite to work with from the first batch. I gave it more rising time on the counter and it barely budged. It's baking now and is rising a little but clearly this recipe needs tweaking.

Any suggestions, so I don't need to just trial and error it 100 times to get delicious loaves?

Answer 1

There are several factors in The difference between too much hydration and too little is subtle, you have swung too far in the other direction and made it far too dry by reducing water by 25% and your egg by 25% as well, as eggs are mostly water as well. It's also possible that you are using plain all-purpose flour and the recipe is for bread flour, which is a bit more absorbent.

When it comes to bread baking exact measurements are important, when it comes to bread baking or mixing in a bread maker it's absolutely key, what seems like small variations for instance the cups of flour being slightly heaped or below the line add up. I moved to using a scale and translating everything into grams when baking bread in order to get consistency. That includes weighing the water as well as it's far more precise than the lines on a cup. If you don't want to go down that route you have to be very consistent in how you measure, like scraping the cups of flour flat to ensure precision.

If it were me I would either just try a completely different recipe, or if you want to experiment do it by hand until you get it right. Split the difference in the water and add 2 full eggs to start, then add exactly measured teaspoons of flour or water until it's the right consistency, which is just slightly sticky and smooth (it will get less sticky after the first rise). Take notes on how much you need to add, then adjust your recipe accordingly.

As for the sweetness, that's personal taste, if you want to add more sugar go ahead, maybe a tablespoon or two more to start as it's easy to go overboard.