Five-Strand Braid

This braid is beautiful to behold with its spiral top, and well worth the effort required to learn the braiding technique. It is an unusual loaf for two reasons. First, when finished it is lying on its side and must be turned upright to have the correct aspect. Second, unlike other braids where an even number of strands is distributed to each side at the beginning of the braiding process (or as close to even as possible, when using an odd number of strands), with this braid, regardless of the number of strands used, there are always 2 on one side and the remainder on the other side at the beginning.