Nutella Stuffed Braided Bread

There's nothing more therapeutic than making bread when you're stressed.  Feeling the transformation of the dough as you knead it gently, with soft music in the background.  It puts all your worries behind you.  Psychology report, exams, tests -- all gone.  It's just you and your bread.

 I like it when there's some sort of shaping involved when making bread.  It's just more fun than forming a ball.  This is an interesting way of braiding bread really.  It's not the typical braided challah-like bread.

It's meant to look prettier than this... But the actual braiding is fairly easy (diagram underneath), just make sure you bring the strips of dough down at an angle, rather than straight across like I did.  Oh and obviously, replace the filling with anything you want -- jam, lemon curd, cinnamon and sugar etc.

This is short and sweet because I have to go back to my Psychology report now.

Adapted from here
Ingredients
3 cups plain flour
1 cup milk
2 tsp yeast
1/4 cup sugar
1/4 tsp salt
1 tsp vanilla

Filling
Nutella

Icing sugar for dusting

Method
Mix all the dough ingredients together with a spoon until a dough forms, then knead it for 10-15 minutes.  Place in a bowl and let rise in a warm place for at least 90 minutes.
Take the dough out and roll into a large rectangle (about 5mm thick).  Using a knife, gently mark the dough as to divide it into three sections.  Cut the same number of 1-inch cross strips down the two outer sides, and fill the middle section with nutella.  Starting from the top, take the left strip and bring it across diagonally to the other side.  Then repeat with the opposite side so they criss-cross each other, and then repeat with the rest of the strips.

Set the loaf aside in a warm place, covered loosely with cling film, for about an hour.  Then bake at 180C for 40 minutes.

Take out, let cool and then dust with icing sugar.

Image from what about second breakfast