I made two loaves of this bread today, the first loaf I made according to the original recipe, it was delicious, dense and loaded with fruit, nuts and chocolate. Last night after I prepped the dough and had it sitting in my warm cozy laundry room for the rising process I started reading this blog and freaked out, I went to check on the dough and after a couple of hours it did not look like it was rising so I decided to make another batch and add the fruit, nuts and chocolate at the second rise and spread into the fold overs so the "goodies" would not burn as suggested by Since 8. I also used bread flour in the second loaf. This is what I discovered. The first batch did rise, I baked it at 450 in a Le Crueset oval dutch oven took the cover off at 30 minutes as the recipe called for, that is way to early, if I left the cover on longer it would not have gotten as dark and the fruit etc on the outside would not have browned as much, the taste was FABULOUS, my 87 year old father asked for 3 pieces during dinner and he usually eats very little of anything at any meal. The second loaf, I baked for the same amount of time as the recipe called for but I left the cover on for almost the entire time, I took it off for the last 15 minutes and the loaf looks better than anything I have seen at any gourmet bakery. I used the same dutch oven I used for the first loaf and I used the middle shelf of my oven and I put a pizza stone on the bottom rack for both loaves, the bottoms were not over done and as I said the second loaf is picture perfect, I even posted on facebook. Between this and the plain no-knead bread recipe I am in bread heaven! One more thing, I did put cornmeal in the bottom of the dutch oven before I put the dough in and nothing stuck the bread came out very easily. Wow! I am so glad you gave us this excellent feedback. We always appreciate knowing what works/doesn't work for bakers at home. Thank you! Kim@KAF Good Luck and happy baking, next up Easter Breads.

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