Sesame Wheat Braids

From Nancy Montgomery, Hartville, Ohio

This award-winning bread recipe just became an instant favorite of mine. Overall prep time was about 45 minutes as the dough needs to rise twice for about 20 minutes each time. I’m not an experienced bread maker, but it came out like a professionally baked loaf straight from the bakery. My only suggestion would be to follow the recipe and you simply cannot go wrong. It’s light and fluffy and would be great for French toast or just dipping in olive oil with a pinch of salt.

A Mini History of “Twist Bread”

If it looks familiar, it is a type of bread otherwise known as Challah, which was typically eaten on Jewish ceremonial occasions. Its European culinary origins date back to the 13th Century, however there are multiple biblical references occurring much earlier further east and into North Africa. For a deeper dive covering decades and continents, I would suggest picking up a copy of Maggie Glezer’s “A Blessing of Bread,” (2004) that also includes dozens of recipes for variations on challah as a nice perk. A full picture of the heritage is not entirely known despite the proliferation of research papers on the topic, however there does appear to be consensus among scholars that the first record of “Twist bread” on our shores was found in the 1871 publication of Esther Levy’s first Jewish cookbook (Philadelphia) - Jewish Cookery Book.

Rise & Shine

As you can see below, the dough should have an an airy appearance once it has risen for about 20 minutes (my dough below is coated with walnut oil for handling purposes, giving the surface a little shine). You can use vegetable oil or any other neutral oil that works well for baking.

Let the dough rise again for 15-20 minutes once braided and coated with sesame seeds. It’s now ready to pop into the oven for 20-25 minutes!

Remove from oven when loaves become lightly browned…

It appears the publisher of this wonderful recipe was Country Woman Magazine (1995) which started out as “a feminist country survival manual and creative journal” in the early 70’s, but the submission comes from Nancy Montgomery with full instructions (front and back) pictured here in the condition I found it along with the 3rd place blue ribbon Nancy won at the county fair, which is rather charming. :)