In a medium bowl, combine 1 cup warm water with your packet of yeast. Stir gently until the yeast is dissolved, and let sit for a few minutes.

In a large bowl, mix the flour, salt, sugar, onion, and garlic with a whisk. Then add melted butter, 3 eggs, and olive oil to the yeasty water mixture and whisk gently til combined.

Gradually add liquid mix to flour mix, using your hands to gently knead the dough until it has a smooth, light texture. Feel free to sprinkle with additional flour as you fold and knead until it’s no longer sticky.

Butter a second large bowl and transfer your dough ball into it. Cover the bowl with a damp cloth and place inside your unlit oven. For extra good rising juju, place a small pot of steaming hot water in the oven with your covered dough.

Leave to rise for 2-3 hours, until it’s doubled in size.

When it’s ready, remove dough and pot of water from the oven.

Lightly flour a dry surface for rolling. Divide the dough into four equal size balls. Then divide each of those balls into two. You should have eight mini balls of dough.

Here’s the math:

8 mini dough balls = rolled and divided into 4 strands of the same length each.

Take the first dough ball and start rolling it into a strand, using your hands to push and spread the strand from the center out to the sides. This is a genius technique that the highly adept Sarah passed along to me, and which I now gladly bestow unto you.

Once the strand is about a foot in length, fold it in half and separate into two pieces. Roll each of those out into strands that are about ½ inch thick, and then separate into two.

Now you should have 4 strands of the same length from your mini dough ball.

Take two of those strands and place them very close together horizontally. Then take the other two strands and place them on top of the horizontal strands vertically, like a tic tac toe or a hashtag. #challah! Sorry, couldn’t resist.

Now start your weave. A picture is worth a thousand words, so I’m going to let Mara show you how this looks on YouTube. It’s so simple, I promise. Watch the video below and breathe a sigh of relief. So easy.As you finish each mini challah braid, place it on a foil lined cookie sheet. Once they’re all done, cover the sheets (you’ll likely need twwith damp cloths and let the challahs rise another hour.

After an hour, preheat your oven to 330º.

Using a pastry brush, pain the mini challahs with egg white. Then distribute the seed mix evenly between the challahs, sprinkling lightly on top.

Bake for about 25 minutes, checking every 15 minutes to assess levels of golden goodness. Remove from oven and let cool about 15 minutes, or as long as you can possibly resist the heavenly aroma of freshly baked challah and toasted seeds!

Serve with whipped cream cheese mixed with freshly chopped chives.