Bread Baker's Apprentice: Challah

I've skipped ahead one week in the challenge. This week's bread is supposed to be Casatiello, a kind of Italian take on Brioche filled with sausage and cheese, but I couldn't bear to make another brioche variation too soon, and we needed something less rich around the house.
You know you're in trouble when 'something less rich' is a challah. Challah was one of the first breads that I learned how to make, in part because it is easy, and in part because it is, like the Artos, a celebration bread, therefore the baking specialty of one or another of my parents' group of friends. John's (large, fluffy, wheaty) and Nina's (long, braided, seeded) challahs made it obvious that challah making was possible and came with great rewards, and I've never looked back. For Rosh Hashanah, I have occasionally been known to make Martha Stewart's rich, rich yolky challah, but Reinhardt's recipe is a good one for more everyday wear (as is the recipe in The Silver Palate Cookbook, fyi). I subbed in 1.5 cups of whole wheat flour into 4 cups total, and the result was a heartier taste with no change in texture.

Since my one other wedding assignment this summer, in addition to the cupcakes and cake, is a celebratory challah, it's good to flex the challah muscles. Like a very few other recipes, challah always feels so close and familiar to make that it is less like an adult challenge and more like a childhood memory. I like it that way.
Sophie, who has come to live with us for a little while, also likes it, but likes it best when Matt french toasts it, which he did this past Sunday.

French toast is outstanding. I have no manners, and, as with pancakes, tend to think it is best eaten by hand right off the griddle, one by one. Matt is very tolerant and allows such behavior even though he was not raised by wolves. My mother always did express the forlorn hope that I would behave more conventionally outside the house. That's why I never go out for brunch.

Tuesdays With Dorie - Caramel Topped Flan

This is not the Tuesdays With Dorie recommended recipe. This week we were supposed to make a berry cobbler. Knowing me, many of you might very well ask why I didn't make it. I adore berries and biscuit dough, to the point of obsession, but because of this obsession, I already had half a rhubarb pie in the refrigerator. The pie, which I didn't blog about, had been frozen whole and unbaked, then baked a week later. The rhubarb kept its shape and its tartness, which I preferred to a collapsed mush. But then, you know how I feel about rhubarb.

So, assuming that I'd had all the biscuit-like things that were good for me this week, and that the house might like a change, I took advantage of the Tuesdays With Dorie newcomer loophole - the past recipe. I'm not totally clear whether this loophole is official, but it seems that when TWD members have reason to avoid a certain recipe on the list, it is permissible to switch in a recipe made by the group before they joined.

So, as my passion for custard equals my passion for biscuit and berries, I made a quick flan. I halved the recipe but not the caramel, as I wanted a lot. Flan is easy, quick and dirty, and always good. That said, my supply-influenced modifications, (half & half replacing milk and cream, two eggs instead of the recommended 1 and 1/2 egg and one yolk) seemed to make a thick and solid, rather than meltingly creamy, flan. All told, I would eat any flan gladly, but I think Alice Waters' version from The Art of Simple Food has worked out better for me. (In answer to the question posed in the comments, pictures have been a little spotty these days because I damaged Libby's camera and have been running around madly.)