Ciabatta

A wonderful bread that is light and crusty outside with a soft airy middle. Great for pasta, soup, or simply dipped in herbed olive oil. Very easy to make and one of our favorites.

Ingredients

Method

Biga

In the evening before you’ll make the ciabatta make your Biga.

Add the flour, water, and yeast to a large bowl and mix with a wooden spoon until all the flour is incorporated into the water.

Cover tightly with plastic wrap and let stand at room temperature for 8 hours or overnight.

Dough

This dough has a high hydration so it will be very sticky.

Using a stand mixer with the paddle attachment. Add the biga, flour, yeast, water, and salt, and mix on low speed for 1 minute.

Increase speed to medium low and mix for another 2 minutes.

Replace paddle with dough hook and mix at medium speed for 10 minutes or until dough pulls away from the sides of the bowl. Scrape bowl as needed.

Transfer dough to a large bowl, cover with plastic wrap, and let rise for 1 hour.

Spray a spatula with cooking spray and lift the edge of the dough from one side towards the middle. Rotate bowl 90 degrees and repeat folding 5 more times, rotating after each fold for a total of 6 folds.

Recover and let rise for 30 minutes.

Repeat the folding process two more times, recovering with plastic wrap, and let rise another 30 minutes each time.

Preheat your oven to 450 degrees with a pizza steel (recommended) in it or a pizza stone.

Cut a piece of parchment paper to fit on your pizza peel.

Transfer dough to a floured counter and cut into 2 pieces.

Press each piece of dough into a 12×6 inch rectangle.

Fold shorter sides into the middle like you’re folding a letter, overlapping each other, to form a 7×4 inch loaf.

Transfer dough to parchment paper seam side down and let rest for 30 minutes.

Using your fingertips, poke entire top of dough, stretching it gently out to a 10×6 inch rectangle.

Spray tops of dough with water and slide into oven still on the parchment paper.

Bake dough for 20-25 minutes, until it reaches 210 degrees, spraying tops with water at 2 1/2 and 5 minute marks.

NOTE: I cover oven glass with a towel to keep water from hitting it and possibly shattering. It’s a low chance but why take it?

Remove bread from oven and let cool on wire racks.