Questions for you bread bakers out there

[Mezzaluna]

I hadn't baked bread in a very long time but I want to get better at it. Yesterday I whipped up a batch of my grandmother's challah dough (for egg bread, usually braided). Not long after the dough began to rise we needed to visit my in-laws. So I covered the bowl with plastic wrap and put the dough in the fridge until this morning. I left the dough out of the fridge for about an hour and a half, then pushed it down, kneaded it for a couple of minutes, and formed two loaves:

I brushed them with egg wash and sprinkled them with sesame seeds. One will be frozen for my in-laws. The other one my husband and I will test.
(I had to remove the images; they were on a password-protected site, and I can't get them to upload to the photo gallery! )

I used my Kitchen Aid mixer with the dough hook for the first time with this batch. I didn't knead the dough in the mixer, but by hand for 10 minutes. Could I have let the mixer do more of the work?

As for shaping, I want the loaves to be more tapered at the ends and thicker in the middle. How can I achieve that?

Also, the seeds are falling off quite easily. Should I have used more egg wash? I brushed a very thin coat on.

Thanks in advance for your expertise!
Mezz

[Anneke]

Mezz, you are too hard on yourself. Those are BEAUTIFUL!
..Now I'll let the experts speak.

[Mezzaluna]

I just sliced open the one we're keeping. The crumb was even without big holes (or any that I can see), and its texture is light.

Oh, did I say it tastes good too?

[jessiquina]

sounds delicious, i love challah! you could definitely let the mixer knead your dough.

[oldschool1982]

Mezz,

Sometimes it's not a bad thing to yield to technology. There's a family bread recipe that my Grandmother used and she had to eventually take it from the board to an electric kneading machine. She didn't have a mixer. We never could tell the difference. Personally I prefer the hand method but sadly I can't perform the task and the strain on the back and hands/arms is too much. So I use the KA as well. It's a matter of opinion but the folks I serve the breads and doughs I make in the mixer never seem to complain nor say "I can tell you didn't hand knead this".

For some reason I couldn't get the pics to appear on my screen, but from what the others replied they're probably flawless. I'm sure no one will ever know or be able to differenciate between the mixer kneaded or the hand kneaded.

[Mezzaluna]

Thanks for the encouragement, OldSchool!

I suspect the photo problem is because they're linked to the Kodak site. I'll try to fix it now that I've been able to put them in the photo gallery.

[LPool]

Mezz, I've been baking bread for about 30 years now. I used to hand knead everything but about 15 years ago I started to have trouble with my hands and so I let my KA do the work for me. No one ever questions the fact that it's not hand kneaded...all they want to do is eat it the minute it comes out of the oven. As for the tapered ends....I think that your "ropes" should just be thicker in the middle, so try not to get them evenly rolled. And as far as the seeds are concerned, this is going to sound weird but try spraying the loaves with Pam or brush lightly with water and see if that doesn't do a bit better than the egg wash.

[Mezzaluna]

Thanks, LPool! I'll give it a try in the next week or so.

Mezz