Natural Rainbow Challah #BreadBakers

This natural rainbow challah is colored with spices, fruit and vegetables for a bright and festive look without artificial dyes. It would make a beautiful addition to any party table or weekend brunch. 

Here’s where I suggest, right up at the top, that if you plan to make this bread on the day you want to eat it, you will want to make your natural dyes a day ahead of time. None of this is hard to do but it is time consuming. 

Also, this would be a great project for Easter because you end up with way more dye than you need for this bread and it could be used up dying eggs the old fashioned way. I felt really bad tipping it all out when I was done, without another use for it. 

Natural Rainbow Challah

The inspiration for this challah was a post on the blog What Jew Wanna Eat and the recipe itself is a combo of that post and Joan Nathan’s favorite challah on New York Times Cooking. 

 

Ingredients

For the food coloring:

Pink - 1 small beet (about 3 oz or 85g)

Orange – 1- 1 1/2 teaspoons ground annatto aka achiote

Yellow – 1- 1 1/2 teaspoons ground turmeric

Green – 1 cup, packed, or 85g spinach leaves

Purple – 1 cup or 140g fresh or frozen blueberries 

Blue – unused cooked blueberry juice from purple + 1 teaspoon baking soda

For challah dough:

2 1/4 teaspoons active dry yeast 1 packet

3/4 cups or 80ml warm water 

1/2 cup or 100g sugar

1/4 cup or 60ml canola or other light oil, plus more for dough bowls

1/4 cup or 60ml honey 

2 large eggs +1 egg white  (Save that 1 egg yolk for glazing)

1 teaspoon fine sea salt

5 cups or 625g bread flour, plus more as needed for kneading

Method

First, we’ll make the dye colors.

For the pink, boil your beet in just enough water to cover until tender. When it’s cool enough to handle, use a paper towel to push the peels off. Blend it in small food processor until smooth. Set aside to cool completely. 

For the green dye, simmer the spinach leaves or greens with a little bit of water in a covered skillet until they completely wilted. Blend in small food processor until smooth. Set aside to cool completely.

For the purple, simmer the fresh or frozen blueberries in 2 tablespoons water in a covered pot until they fall apart. Cool, drain, and reserve the liquid.

We'll make the blue out of the purple once we've used it to color one ball of dough by adding the baking soda to the balance. 

Now, make your challah dough. Prepare the yeast in a large mixing bowl for a stand mixer by whisking it with warm water and 1 teaspoon sugar. Leave it for a few minutes to activate the yeast. It should bubble up and get foamy. This means your yeast is live. 

Beat the oil and honey into the foamy yeast mixture. 

Add in the two eggs, one at a time, beating with each addition, then add the egg white. 

Beat in the remaining sugar and salt. 

Gradually add flour beating with each addition. As the dough gets thicker, you might need to change to the bread hook. 

When dough holds together and isn't too sticky, you are ready to start adding your natural dyes.

Divide your dough into six even pieces. I used a food scale to weigh them out. The dough weighed 1162g so each ball was approximately 94g.

Flatten out each piece one at a time (keep the others covered) and put some of each of the homemade food coloring in the middle of each one.  Fold the dough over the dye and pop it back in your stand mixer with the bread hook. Knead until the dye is thoroughly mixed in. 

I started with the easy ones that didn't add liquid, the annatto and turmeric! 

Add a little more flour or dye as needed. I had to hand knead some of mine as well to get the colors well mixed. Form the dough into a ball and place it in a greased bowl and cover lightly with cling film. 

Repeat with the four more dough balls, making a yellow one with the turmeric and adding a little flour as needed for the pink, green and purple dyes. 

Once you've colored the purple ball, add 1 teaspoon of baking soda to the blueberry juice. This will turn it a dark indigo blue. Color the final ball of dough with some of this and knead to incorporate it as you did with the others. 

Put the six dough balls in lightly oiled bowls and cover them with cling film. Leave them to rise in a warm place until they have at least doubled in size, about 1 hour. 

To form the rainbow challah, roll the colored balls into long tubes. 

Now braid and tuck by following these instructions here on the King Arthur Flour YouTube channel: How to braid a six-strand challah. They make the process much clearer than I ever could with words so I'm not even going to try to confuse you! 

Leave your challah to rise again on a parchment or silicone lined baking sheet, lightly covered, until doubled in size, about 45 minutes. 

My latest wintertime trick is to heat a couple of inches of water to boiling in a bowl in the microwave. I open it quickly and set my baking pan on top, closing the door again swiftly. This creates a moist, warm environment for the dough to rise in.  Works like a charm as long as no one else needs the microwave for an hour or so.

When the challah is almost finished rising, preheat your oven to 350° F or 180°C. 

Whisk the egg yolk with 1/2 tablespoon water and generously brush the mixture over the challah.

Bake for 40-45 minutes in your preheated oven, rotating the pan halfway through. If it starts to brown too fast, make a foil tent to cover it. It’s done when the internal temperature reaches 190°F or 88°C.

Leave to cool then slice and enjoy! 

It’s the second Tuesday of the month so that means my Bread Bakers are out in force! Today we are sharing naturally colored breads. One over-achiever (looking at Kelly from A Messy Kitchen!) even baked two different breads. Check out all the links below. Many thanks to our host, Radha of Magical Ingredients for this fun and challenging theme!

• Beet Bread from A Day in the Life on the Farm
• Beetroot Pinwheel Paratha from Sneha's Recipe
• Callaloo Bread from Passion Kneaded
• Cranberry Cherry Raisin Bread from Palatable Pastime
• Matcha and Strawberry Cream Melonpan from Magical Ingredients
• Natural Rainbow Challah from Food Lust People Love
• Panini al Pomodoro from Karen's Kitchen Stories
• Purple Sweet Potato Pepita Swirl Bread from A Messy Kitchen
• Spinach Monterey Jack Sourdough Bread from Zesty South Indian Kitchen
• Turmeric Milk Bread from Ambrosia
• Turmeric Sourdough from A Messy Kitchen

 

#BreadBakers is a group of bread loving bakers who get together once a month to bake bread with a common ingredient or theme. Follow our Pinterest board right here. Links are also updated each month on this home page. We take turns hosting each month and choosing the theme/ingredient.

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