This is sometimes also referred to as “punching down” the dough or deflating it. To do a fold, think of the lump of dough as a square. You grab one side of the square and stretch it out and then fold it over the entire square. Now you grab side #2, 3, 4 and do the same thing. In other words, you’ve stretched and then folded the dough over itself four times. This strengthens the dough and develops the gluten.
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