• On the day you wish to bake take the bags of dough out of the fridge and place onto your bench for an hour or so to allow them to come to room temperature. You only need the dough to come to room temperature, but I have found that if I allow it to rest for up to 3 hours I get a good rise out of them in the oven
• Thirty minutes before you plan to add your fruit and nuts to your dough, place them in a small container and cover with filtered water, and drain them just before you add them to your dough
  
  

STEP 5: STRETCH AND FOLD DOUGH - FOR A LOAF TIN

• Sprinkle your bench with flour, remove dough from the bag (turn the bag upside down and the dough should drop out if you oiled it correctly).
• Stretch the dough out into a longish rectangle so that you can spread your fruit and nut over it (you don't need to "stretch and fold" the dough as you would do normally for a loaf, as the action of placing the fruit and nut onto it, and rolling it up acts like a "stretch and fold").
• Drain your fruit and nut and spread it evenly over the dough
• Start to roll the dough up from a narrow end, and roll until you get to the other end enclosing all the fruit and nut into the dough
• Dust off any excess flour from the top and around the the dough
• Lift the dough up and place it into a medium bread tin
  
  

STEP 5: STRETCH AND FOLD DOUGH - USING A BANNETON

• Generously dust your Banneton with flour to prevent sticking (I like to use rice flour because it is very fine and gets into all the crevices easily, but plain, wholemeal, or semolina flour will do too)
• Sprinkle your bench with flour, remove dough from the bag (turn the bag upside down and the dough should drop out if you oiled it correctly).
• Stretch the dough out into a longish rectangle so that you can spread your fruit and nut over it (you don't need to "stretch and fold" the dough as you would do normally for a loaf, as the action of placing the fruit and nut onto it, and rolling it up acts like a "stretch and fold").
• Drain your fruit and nut and spread it evenly over the dough
• Start to roll the dough up from a narrow end, and roll until you get to the other end enclosing all the fruit and nut into the dough
• Dust off any excess flour from the top and around the dough
• Use your hands to gently shape the dough into a round being careful not to break the top of the dough skin (so that the fruit and nut is still enclosed on the inside of the dough)
• Lift the dough up and place it upside down into the Banneton, with the joined section facing up
• If necessary, gently press the joins together, but this is the section that will be placed first onto the baking tray so you won't see the join when it is baked)
  
  

STEP 6: SHAPE THE DOUGH - this has been done in the previous step

STEP 7: RISING THE DOUGH

• Place your tin or Banneton into your chosen container, cover, and allow dough to rise until double in size
  
  

STEP 8: SPRAY AND BAKE - IF USING A LOAF TIN

• Preheat oven to 235 degrees fan forced (this can take a little while so start this as soon as you think the dough is nearly ready – it takes about 20 minutes in my oven), and place rack second shelf from the bottom of the oven
• When ready to bake spray dough generously with a fine mist of water, lightly score the tops of your loaves and place into the oven (I don't generally score the top of a fruit and nut loaf - unless it is free-form - but if you wish to do that you can do that now)
• Bake for 10 minutes, then reduce heat to 225 degrees and bake for a further 15 minutes (I bake this loaf for 5 minutes less than the standard loaf as the dough is in a larger tin and more spread out)
• Remove loaf from oven, turn bread out of baking tin straight onto a cooling rack (it should just pop out if using Mackies tins … be careful as tin and bread are hot), and allow to cool completely before cutting or storing.
  
  

STEP 8: SPRAY AND BAKE - IF USING BANNETON

• Preheat oven to 235 degrees fan forced (this can take a little while so start this as soon as you think the dough is nearly ready – it takes about 20 minutes in my oven), and place rack second shelf from the bottom of the oven
• When ready to bake, place a piece of baking paper onto a heavy duty tray ready for the dough to be upturned onto
• Get your Banneton and turn it upside down over the tray and the dough should pop out is you floured it well ... if not give it a gentle tap on the tray but try to be gentle as you don't want to lose air out of the loaf
• Spray dough generously with a fine mist of water, score the top of your loaf if desired and place into the oven
• Bake for 10 minutes, then reduce heat to 225 degrees and bake for a further 20 minutes
• Remove tray from oven, lift the baking paper and allow the dough to slip off onto a cooling rack and allow to cool completely before cutting or storing.