I love Ciabatta, but have never attempted to make it. I decided to try a traditional Ciabatta made with a Poolish and T-65 French flour. 80% hydration. I need a finer meshed sifter, as I sifted far too much flour onto the counter and the wet, sticky dough, but it will easily brush off. I didn’t think the crumb was too bad for a first try, and it will taste great for this week’s sandwiches.
Richard
Much much better than my first goes at Ciabatta. Ciabatta isn’t my friend and it took me several tries to get something half decent. These look great especially for a first bake Richard.
Benny
Benny, it’s hard for me to imagine that you had difficulty with Ciabatta, but it does encourage me to keep working on it. It was actually my first time to use a couche, a Baguette flipping board, and my new baking steel instead of a baking stone. Eating is the reward, but learning is the fun part.
Richard
I would never think that was anybody’s first attempt, Richard. That’s a cracking good crumb there. And apart from the slightly thick coating of flour that’s a perfect looking crust.
Tip… never use your fingers to disperse the flour on your worktop. Sprinkle the flour then turn out the dough. Trying to make the flour more even than sprinkling doesn’t work. In fact running ones fingers through the flour just makes the flour thicker. Apologies if you don’t do this but worth a mention. Either use a shaker or use the flick method employed by professional bread makers.
Thanks, Abe. Once I got the flour brushed off, they were fine. I did use a sifter that my wife uses, but it wasn’t fine enough. I ordered an extra fine sifter that should give me the dusting of flour that I was trying to do. It made a wonderful sandwich for my lunch today. I think I’ll try a whole wheat Ciabatta next weekend as I had fun with this one.
Richard
Your ciabattas look perfect!
Thanks, it was very tasty. I’ve been reading about the hundreds of ways to make ciabatta - can’t wait.
Richard
Wow! Your first attempt at ciabatta is an outstanding.
Ciabatta is by far my favorite bread. You can do a lot with ciabatta. Lately I have been making it using a biga, white wine and chopped fresh sage leaves. As we slide into autumn the sage will get replaced with fresh rosemary.
Ciabatta made with about 250-300g flour will fit in a ¼ sheet pan, dimple it out, drizzle with olive oil, sprinkle with large-flake sea salt and bake for an excellent focaccia. (Ciabatta made with 500-600g flour will fill an 11x14 pan for a thicker focaccia.) Or, top it as you would any pizza. If you haven’t tried it yet, there are some decent finishing olive oils now coming out of Capay Valley, good for dipping ciabatta or focaccia.
For loaves I will mix the dough then immediate refrigerate for 1 or 2 days. Because the dough is so wet I prefer shaping it cold. I will often refrigerate panned dough (focaccia) for a day or two before topping and baking. It really kicks up the flavor for yeasted bread.
I don’t care much for unbaked flour so the dusting flour still on the loaves after baking gets removed. I use a plastic surgeons brush to remove most of it without damaging the crust.
Thanks, Otis, for your comments and useful information about focaccia.
Richard
