By her own admission, St Louis-born Mandy was a total failure when it came to making challah - but she refused to be defeated.

And all the tears she shed have paid off as she now has the Mandylicious brand, where she teaches how to make challah and she has more than 85,500 followers on Instagram.

To add to this, her book Twisted: A New Approach to Challah, Babka, and Other Twisty Breads (Rock Point, £25) was published in the UK this week.

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