bad romance

i made peter reinhart's challah again, and went quite adventurous on the shapes.
after this time, i realised that i really should follow the recipe for the biga down to the weight of the eggs and yolks, instead of using the stated numbers. the biga always turned out every wet and difficult to knead together, and eventually a lot of extra flour was added to the final dough.
for some reason, if you look at the challah i made here, you'll see that the biga for this batch was a lot less yellow than the one last time. i don't know why that could be, maybe the yolks were significantly different? you cna also see the colour of the final dough is markedly darker here; i think that's because i added a lot of extra whole-weat flour to bring the final dough together.
three big balls and six small ones. i planned on making a double-tiered braid, and - inspired by the christmas plaited ring i learnt at the bread class - a plaited challah ring.
the double-tiered braid turned out almost nicely. i used a 3-braid on the base, and another 3-braid with smaller strands on top. i think a wider base would have been better, because the top tier slid sideways slightly. luckily it didn't slip off completely.
i made the plaited ring with three of the small balls, and might have overbaked it, because the ring came out feeling very dried and firm, like a block of crust.
the crumb wasn't as fluffy as last time, and that could be because i added a lot more flour when making the final dough.
so here is the plaited challah ring, an unbroken circle that represents continuity.