Elul Challah

It's the Hebrew month of Elul, the month leading up to Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur, Sukkos, and Shemini Atzeret-Simchat Torah. Most of the year we eat braided challah bread on Shabbos and holidays. For the holidays mentioned above of the month of Tishrei, we often use round challahs formed in a spiral. So logically (not) in Elul I like to make braided round challahs. 

First I divide each challah's dough into four sections,
rolle them into snakes, and do this center cross-over

Next I do the next-most-outer cross-overs,
starting with any pair, going around consistently
in a circle crossing one snake over it's paired neighbor

See, I've now crossed the left snakes and the top snakes

After that, I cross the snakes to their neighbors, continuing
the weave pattern. At this point it's messy but you'll see that
it doesn't matter because the messy part gets tucked underneath.

I've tucked the mess underneath and made nice tall round braided loaves.

And now they're cooling, along with pumpkin bread, and brownies are in the oven.