Single-Stranded Braid Challah Shape

When making stuffed or coiled challah, one thing has always bothered me... the ends.  The ends of the bread never seem to have any of the goodies.  No Nutella, no cinnamon sugar... which is really why you spent all that time making the stuffed challah in the first place.

Enter The Single-Stranded Braid, which will fix all your problems with the ends of your challah lacking in the fillings.  Plus, this shape works awesome to achieve small-size rolls that mimic the overall braided look of a three-strand challah.  Cute, simple, and successful.

I started with a long, flat piece of dough that I rolled out and filled with a melted margarine base topped with cinnamon sugar. I then coiled the roll-up, length-wise, being careful to avoid too many air pockets.

As you can see in the following pictures, I didn't seal this challah as well as I could have. As a result, the filling did leak out. Ultimately, I don't mind too much because cinnamon sugar just crystallizes into deliciousness when it leaks out. You can always pinch the seam tighter if you like.

Start with the right end tucked under about the middle of the long strand.

Bring the long tail beneath and through the circle you've created.

Now grasp the circle and twist it once toward you.

Bring the long tail underneath and through.

It's that simple!  Bake as normal.  I can tell you this week how much we liked this cinnamon sugar challah, because between just The Hazz and me, this challah is GOOOOOONE.  Success!

Shavua tov from our bayit to yours!!!

PS: I'm thrilled to be participating in a Rosh Hashanah Blogger Party coming later this week! Stay tuned.