Rev 0.45, last revised: 20-Oct-06
This page is an edit of a much longer NG post made by my friend, Mike Avery. I did my best to cut the excess verbiage, and can only hope that I've not lost any of the details of the method.
I'm told that this method will work for dough between 55 - 95% hydration; you should target about 25-30% of your flour in the pre-ferment/sponge phase; and you should allow 3–6 hours for bulk fermentation (depends somewhat on the bread). My (as of yet incomplete) test recipe can be found here.
Begin by roughly mixing the ingredients. Make sure all of the flour is at least moistened. If you are using a poolish, don't worry that it hasn't been incorporated into the dough. It's OK if it’s a slimy mess with strands of unincorporated poolish showing. Put the roughly mixed dough into a container and let it rest for 45 minutes.
[1] Turn the dough out onto a work table. Spread the dough out by squashing and mashing it until it’s a rectangle. Then fold in the edges - top and bottom, left and right. I fold things into roughly thirds--kinda like a business letter. As it was explained to me; there are three powerful dough strengthening mechanisms at work:
Simple hydration (getting the flour wet).
Fermentation, done by the yeast; produces gas which stretches the dough.
The fold.
Once the dough is folded, put it back into the fermenting vessel SEAM SIDE DOWN and let it rest for at least 45 minutes.
[2] ... [4] Repeat the folding and resting for at least 3, and up to 6-times. Between each cycle, put it back into the container, seam side down, and let it rest in each instance for an additional 45 minutes.
[last] Give it a final fold, divide and shape it if it's large or you want multiple loaves.
Each time you do a fold-cycle the dough will get better. After the second fold, it will be as good as what you get out of your mixer, the third time will be much better than that.
Allow to rise and bake as you normally would.
If you have any seeds, nuts, or anything else that needs to be part of the dough, add it at the start. Using this method, dough development is largely a chemical action as opposed to a physical action by either kneading or using a mixer.
NB: I don't usually put my dough back into the bowl. I leave it on the counter, and invert the empty bowl over it to keep it from drying out.