Do ahead: When working with bread dough, you can refrigerate it or freeze it at almost any point in the process (before the first rise, after you deflate it, etc.). When you’re ready to work with it again, you bring it back to room temperature and let it resume rising from where it left off. This can take a few hours since it is cold. For this braid, my favorite way to approach it is to assemble the whole thing, braided and filled, put it on its baking sheet, loosely cover it with plastic and either refrigerate it overnight or up to a day, or freeze it for up to a week (wrapped better once frozen, of course). When you’re ready to use it, take it out, bring it back to room temperature and let it complete its second rise before you brush and bake it.

* Pearl Sugar: If you like to bake, pearl sugar is great stuff to have around. It looks gigantic but instead of each “pearl” being reminiscent of a large, tooth-breaking crystal, it has a soft crunch. It’s wonderful on baked goods and even in them, like classic Liege waffles. And it’s pretty. When it comes to baked goods, pretty always wins.