Seven Heavens Challah

For centuries, Sephardic women have been baking a bread called the the Siete Cielos in honor of Shavuot. In Ladino Siete Cielos means the seven heavens. This refers to a teaching about how the seven celestial spheres opened up when G-d gave the Torah on Mount Sinai. Ladino is a blend of Hebrew and Spanish which was the language of the Jews of Turkey, Greece, and parts of Morroco.

Here’s a picture.
I discovered this Challah from Nicholas Stavroulakis’s wonderful “cookbook of the Jews of Greece.” He drew a lovely picture and offered instructions which I attempted to copy.
The orb at the center which is roughly the size of a smallish Challah represents Mount Sinai . Around it are seven rings–made from ropes of dough–to represent the seven heavens (sheva rakiyim in Hebrew). On top of them are small dough sculptures representing Miriams well, the 10 Commandments, an open Torah scroll, a dove ( a symbol of the Jewish people) and Moses’ copper serpent (nachas nehoset).

This is what it looked like when I took it out of the oven.