For Day 7 of the Bread Baker’s Apprentice Challenge, we made Ciabatta. Ciabatta is an Italian bread made in the shape of a slipper.
The bread baker’s challenge just keeps getting better and better. I’ve enjoyed making every bread in the challenge. However, I think Ciabatta is my favorite so far. I love this bread. My taste tester said “Those Italians know what they’re doing, don’t they?” I felt like a real Artisan baker making this bread. And the results…delicious! I’m hooked! It’s so chewy and wonderful – even at room temperature with just olive oil.
According to Peter Reinhart, “This bread hails from an age-old tradition of rustic, slackdough breads, however, the name ciabatta was not applied to the loaf until the mid-twentieth century by an enterprising baker in the Lake Como region of northern Italy. He observed that the bread resembled a slipper worn by dancers of the region and thus dubbed his loaf ciabatta di Como (slipper bread of the Como).” I love dance and Italian bread so I was really excited about making this bread.
Wow, your ciabattas look great. Love all the photos.
Love the crumb holes too.
Great baking along with you.
Susie
Thanks Susie! Thanks for following along. I appreciate the support. I don’t know how you keep up with everyone!
This is such an excellent step-by-step description of making the Ciabatta. I finished my Casatiello and Challah last weekend and now feel pretty caught up with the challenge. I’ll be tackling the Ciabatta this week and your write-up will be invaluable. Thanks so much!
My write up for the Casatiello and Challah is here: http://strangerkiss.wordpress.com/2009/06/28/casatiello-and-challah/
Thanks strangerkiss. I’m glad you’re following along with us. It’s a lot of fun! I’ll definitely check out your posts on Casatiello and Challah. I’m learning so much from everyone.
I thought ciabatta called for more water than this recipe? is there a typo?
This particular ciabatta is made with a poolish of 107% (12 ounces) water to 100% (11.25 ounces) bread flour and 6 tablespoons to 3/4 cup additional water in the dough. It’s a fairly wet dough, but feel free to add more water if you prefer working with an even wetter dough. Just make sure the dough holds together enough to do the stretch-and-folds to develop the gluten.
I’m thinking he just scanned the page for the Ciabatta “dough recipe” and skipped the poolish, possibly thinking it was for something else, or an optional step or just ignored it for not being what he was looking for, a Ciabatta dough recipe.
When I read it initially I was beginning to panic over working with such poofy slop, until I was able to breathe a sigh of relief upon seeing how little water compared to flour went into the 2nd stage “dough recipe”, no longer fearing to work with such a wet dough! LOL!
I understand these “long ferment” breads tend to not only taste better and are more tender yet chewy, but also develop many additional subtle flavors from the wheat flours, and also gives them a longer shelf life, and better mold resistance, of course the “crumb” is exceptional for using a few slices with soups, or even plain as a side with a Caesar salad.
but I can tell you from cooking in a local “Artisan themed” restaurant recently, that aside from the usual vertically cut slices, cutting a portion of 1/4 loaf (1/3 if it comes out really light) of that slipper horizontally, and spreading the bottom with a black and green olive tapenade, and layering things like Prosciutto Di Parma, asparagus and thinly sliced fresh eggplant both brushed with evoo & grilled with a grind of sea salt, and further stacked with 2 or 3 modest slivers (lobes) of prepared roasted red peppers, plus some thin slices from across the wide eye of a fresh Mozzarella ball that also has a sprinkling of grated asiago on top of them, along with a few fresh basil leaves and then drizzled with a sweet, rich, and gooey, Balsamic reduction (and I mean evaporating around 85% before turning up the heat to begin to “candy caramelize” it but stopping before crackle and only boiling the last few moments, just enough for it to bubble to the top of the pot to bring up the shine and result in smooth “sticks to everything” at room temperature “ribbons” of sweet ZESTY goodness that will stay in place, and drip only slightly or ever so slowly that molasses would win the race & never “runny” unless over heated), and evoo, with the top part of the slipper being swiped with a roasted garlic spread (made from JUST garlic, slow & low roasted in evoo until soft and golden almost throughout, without the heat ever reaching the smoke point…pure heaven for roasted garlic lovers), before closing the top on it, and then the whole thing being “panini grilled”…OMG the salivation is violating the laws of physics…I swallowed so much while writing this, that now I’m full! LOL!
So you see, since it has been a few (wow five now) years since working (disability), why I would need this kind of loaf to satiate my cravings, and since it’s only me, being able to keep it a few extra days will be a huge plus instead of risking crushing that “holey crumb” by vacuum sealing and freezing it… that is only for emergency reserves, and not everyday eating! LOL!
Thanks for sharing your recipe and….Bon Appetite!
TSG!
Thanks TSG! Now you’re making me hungry for some more ciabatti.
With the size of my wet loaf prior to first fermentation on counter top, I find 8×8 really turns out to be too thick, it’s more like 15×15 to get it as thin as you show in your photo! If it is thicker what are my problems, if any, as I make only 2 loaves?
Hi Stephen, the 8 inch square is an approximation at this point. You still need to stretch and fold the dough to strengthen the gluten. After the stretch and fold is when you’ll make more of a square or rectangle. You’ll need to make longer loaves if you are only doing 2 loaves. Ciabatti is not as exact as other loaves so you can play around a bit just don’t degas it too much. Hope this helps.