Gorgeous, Fabulous, Terrific, I'm on my way over from NY with a Doggie Bag in hand. What a beautiful display of your wonderful baking talent. Congratulations on a successful day.

Is 195 degrees the internal temp to shoot for with breads only or does 195 work for cakes too? I never knew internal temperature was used to determine "doneness". Thanks for sharing.
EC

YEAH 246...you are da'bomb !

EC ...depends on the bread. Artisinal breads are usually done at 200-205. It has to do with the water content of the breads. The water evaporates and as this happens the temp increases. The bread is done when the optimal water content is gone. You don't want it too dry and not doughy either.

Do you bake yeast breads? The best way is to practice with a simple plain white loaf and then graduate to other breads. I have posted several times for the Challah that I make and I am sure 246 will post her recipe. It was the 1st yeast bread I ever made in 1975-6 . Please ask if we can help, caroline

I was so impressed with these baked goods that I sent the pictures to my Mom who is a bread fanatic!

I have not had great luck with bread baking, either with my new Miele nor with my excellent old Whirlpool (no convection). I have find with both ovens, the bread does not rise enough when put in oven( it certainly rises it the bowl) and secondly the crust bakes too hard so even if it is a simple whole wheat bread, it's encased with a hard crust. It's not an oven issue, has to be how I work the recipies. Love Challah, and it was one of the first breads I learned to bake, but recently have not had spectacular results. If you or 246 could post a good recipie here or elsewhere, I would be forever greatful.
Thanks for your interest, really appreciated.

Challah is a really forgiving recipe. I took a baking class at a local culinary school and the instructors were big on accuracy so all ingredients were weighed and all items cooked to internal temperatures which eliminates inaccuracies to to different oven temps etc. We were taught how to accommodate for humidity as well but honestly I couldn't be bothered with the complicated formula for home baking. Most breads, cakes and pastries are done at 195 although if you're making a dough with a higher hydration as caroline says, you need a higher internal temp. For home cooking if you aim between 195 and 205 you should be fine on everything. And it only takes 2-5 minutes to go from 195 to 205 in a 350 oven.

Try spray your bread with water while it bakes. This will keep the crust from getting to hard. Also, iirc, if your oven temp is too low (get an oven thermometer) the crust will be harder as it will "thicken" before the middle reaches optimal temp.

Also, I HIGHLY recommend you try the New York Times no knead bread. It's an artisinal bread that takes 18 hours but most of that is wait time for fermentation. Truly, it's a fool proof recipe that turns out a stunning loaf. You will need a 4-6 qt Dutch oven like Le Creuset. The $50 one from Target works well too. I have both so I know from experience ;)

This was made in my old crappy oven that couldn't hold a temp:

and here's the recipe, the metric weight measures are mine so feel free to ignore :)
No-Knead Bread

Published: November 8, 2006
Adapted from Jim Lahey, Sullivan Street Bakery
To quote Mr. Lahey "so easy and fool-proof even a four year old can make it"
Time: About 1 hours plus 14 to 20 hours rising

3 cups all-purpose or bread flour, more for dusting 430g
¼ teaspoon instant yeast 1g
1¼ teaspoons salt up to 2 ¾ by taste 8g
Cornmeal or wheat bran as needed.

1. In a large bowl combine flour, yeast and salt. Add 1 5/8 cups water 345g, and stir until blended; dough will be shaggy and sticky. Cover bowl with plastic wrap. Let dough rest at least 12 hours, preferably about 18, at warm room temperature, about 70 degrees.

2. Dough is ready when its surface is dotted with bubbles. Lightly flour a work surface and place dough on it; sprinkle it with a little more flour and fold it over on itself once or twice. Cover loosely with plastic wrap and let rest about 15 minutes.

3. Using just enough flour to keep dough from sticking to work surface or to your fingers, gently and quickly shape dough into a ball. Generously coat a cotton towel (not terry cloth) with flour, wheat bran or cornmeal; put dough seam side down on towel and dust with more flour, bran or cornmeal. Cover with another cotton towel and let rise for about 2 hours. When it is ready, dough will be more than double in size and will not readily spring back when poked with a finger.

4. At least a half-hour before dough is ready, heat oven to 450 degrees. Put a 6- to 8-quart heavy covered pot (cast iron, enamel, Pyrex or ceramic) in oven as it heats. When dough is ready, carefully remove pot from oven. Slide your hand under towel and turn dough over into pot, seam side up; it may look like a mess, but that is O.K. Shake pan once or twice if dough is unevenly distributed; it will straighten out as it bakes. Cover with lid and bake 30 minutes, then remove lid and bake another 15 to 30 minutes, until loaf is beautifully browned. Cool on a rack.

Yield: One 1½-pound loaf.

Turning your dough is a technique used to develop the gluten. It's common in some kind of breads, like ciabatta. This recipe calls for the dough to be turned once or twice after it's initial fermentation. Basically all you do is after you dump your dough on the counter pull your dough at 3 o'clock and 9 o'clock. Fold the dough over into the center, like you would a letter. Then repeat this at 6 o'clock and 12 o'clock. That is two turns (technically one, because you're doing them both at the same time), cover your dough with plastic wrap and let it rest for 15 minutes. Then, turn your ball of dough over, form your ball, place it on a floured cloth, cover it with another cloth, and let it rise for two hours.

and if you want it also, here's my Challah recipe. The secret ingredient is subbing honey for half the oil

Honey Challah - makes 1-2 loaves - can be doubled are quadrupled. I used quadruple to make all the items above.

1 egg (can substitute egg beaters)
1 cup warm water
4 ½ -5cups flour
½ T salt
¼ cup sugar
¼ cup oil or 1/8 cup oil and 1/8 cup honey
(If you measure the oil first the honey will slide right out)
1 pkg dry yeast (2 ¼ Tsp. bottled yeast)

1. Put yeast in water. Use some sugar or salt to proof the yeast. Add the 1 ½ cups of flour, the sugar and the salt and mix. Add the egg and the oil/honey. Add 2 more cups of flour and mix on medium speed until dough is smooth and separates.
2. In a separate bowl, put in half of the remaining flour then the dough and then the remaining flour and mix. Oil a loaf pan - add dough - then flip. Let rise for 2 hours.
3. Punch the dough down. Make your multiple loaves of challah. Let rise in the pan for ½ hour.
4. Coat with an egg wash (egg and water). Could also put some honey and sesame seeds on top.
Bake at 375 for 20-25 minutes.
If youÂd like to make this recipe in your bread machine, then place ingredients in order listed into machine and set on dough setting. When machine ends after first rising, continue with recipe at step 3. (You cannot double this recipe if you are using a bread machine)

loves2cook... looks so very YUMMY! Which Miele models do you have?

246, Oh you are a wonderful for putting all that info into this post. I just cut and pasted the information so I can have it with my recipie info. I am looking forward to trying the Challah, and yes I have heard about the no-knead bread. Interesting about having an oven that's too cool. I thought the problem was if the oven is too hot, the bread top bakes and crusts before all the rising is completed. Anyway I really want to thank you again for taking the time to help me with this info. Enjoy all the goodies for Purim.
EC

remodelfla, we have the double ovens that I think are still available, don't recall the model # though. Do you need me to go look?

Egg cream, that no knead bread is cooked at 450 and that is really hot. The crust gets real crispy.

For the Challah if your oven is too hot, you won't get enough rise out of the bread before the crust is too hard and then the texture will be off

I am so happy to hear your bragging about the Miele Convection. I have been baking breads for 30 years and happily went convection when it came out. I got a KitchenAid that I would not recommend. I have to rotate 2 trays & forget about trying 3. It has not been reliable either. I'll be happy to replace it. BTW I make sourdough wheat bread, foccacia, olive bread, yeast breads. I'd like to hear about other brands as well. thanks for the good info

OH... don't worry about it loves2cook. I just keep researching all options out there. All along I've been leaning toward an Advantium and possibly Monogram wall oven. Initally it didnt' matter if they matched at all because they were going to be in different areas of the kitchen. My layout got tweaked when DH agreed that we could relocated the circuit panel so now I'm looking at an oven stack.

Tomorrow I'm going to a local high end appliance showroom after school because they had a notice on craigslist that they were remodeling their showroom and getting rid of their floor models at discounted prices. I'm going to see exactly how deeply dicounted they are! It would have to be an incredible buy for me to get them now I don't think we'll be ready till the end of the year.

Loves2cook4six, Hag Purim! Yummy hamantaschen!
My favorite hamantaschen filling:
1/3 cup heavy cream
8 ounces chopped semisweet chocolate (chocolate chips work well)
In a small saucepan, heat cream until boiling. Remove from heat and stir in chocolate. Keep stirring until smooth. Refrigerate until stiff.
This is from Jewish Holiday Style by Rita Brownstein and I've used it for years.

Thank you for posting your recipes. I've always wanted to bake challah. Your photos have pushed me over the edge. They look perfectly delicious. Wish Chicago was a little closer...I'd pop over for a lesson. Thanks again for sharing.

OK, stupid question here. How do you tell your bread's internal temp? Do you put a regular meat thermometer in it? Or do you use the Miele's thermometer that is used in the autoroast during convection somehow?

Thanks for the help! My challah's keep coming out so heavy and dense that my husband and kids laugh out loud everytime I try a new recipe!

smarge if your breads are coming out heavy and dense then there are other problems not the final temp.

1) not rising long enough
2) yeast is "dead" because it was old or you killed it with heat when initially mixing the yeast with warm water or during the rising in a too warm area
3) too much flour
4) inadequate kneading

If you will get an instant read thermometer at a cooking store ( do not need an expensive one but digital is easiest) you will have a bit more success. You need to be sure your liquids for the bread are never hotter than 105 degrees. Also the finished temp can be measured by putting the inst read dig thermo into the loaf and getting a quick reading. It needs to be all the way into the center of the loaf .

I have posted my recipe a number of times and several folks who have never made any bread ever before have made perfect loaves. Let me know if you would like it. I will br glad to post again. c