Guest Post: Homemade Ciabatta
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Good news: my girlfriend, Paula, finally had time to write her second guest post about baking bread. This post about homemade ciabatta– and some major (and exciting!) life decisions– follows her first guest post about homemade French baguettes. I’ll turn things over to Paula:
There’s just something about baking. It’s a practical form of chemistry. I even could go so far as to call it a practical magic. You take basic ingredients, combine them with care, and the end products make those around you happy.
The products are temporary works of art that you can appreciate with all of your senses. When I watch someone enjoy what I’ve created, it fills me with a sense of accomplishment and joy that not many other things can compare to.
In my first guest post about baguettes, I mentioned that sometimes I fantasize about quitting everything and becoming a baker. After what felt like an age of agonizing about it, I’ve decided to change my major and pursue baking. I’ve already met with the head chef of culinary arts at my school and applied for the program.
This was a hard decision to make, and a scary one. But I’ve made hard decisions in the past and in my experience all of the hardest decisions have been the most fruitful, like when I quit my job and moved to Santa Barbara to start a new life when I was 31.
Every time I bake, I think that I would be happy if I could do it all day long instead of sitting at a desk. Call it cubicle fever if you will, but I know I won’t mind getting up before the sun rises if it means that I can bake all day. Kneading doesn’t even faze me anymore; actually I look forward to it.
Cooking isn’t the same. I cook for Allison a fair amount; I make her chicken and avocado tacos (the simplest meal to make, and something I never tire of– I could eat that every night), or enchiladas, or chicken mole. But nothing compares to baking. Whether it be cupcakes (like my rainbow cupcakes), bread, or cookies, the simple acts of combining, kneading, shaping, gifting, and seeing people enjoy the products put together by my hands makes me overjoyed. I absolutely love it. I have dreamed about doing this for a living for long enough: I’m getting the ball rolling now.
So, about ciabatta: this is maybe the fifth time I’ve made it. The first time was for Allison’s birthday. I was feeling very ambitious that day and decided I would make ciabatta for the first time WHILE baking baguettes. As you can tell from the photo in the baguettes blog post, they were left to rise a little too long. But the loaves of ciabatta were perfect.
Ciabatta with Homemade Butter!
I used Peter Reinhart’s recipe from The Bread Baker’s Apprentice
There is no sugar in this recipe; like Reinhart’s recipe for baguettes, the pre-ferment allows the natural sugars in the bread to be released. The poolish, or pre-ferment, can be made up to three days ahead.
RECIPE:
Homemade Ciabatta
Slightly adapted from The Bread Baker’s Apprentice
Poolish (Day 1)
Ingredients:
~ 2½ cups bread flour
~ 1½ cups water, room temperature
~ ¼ tsp. instant yeast
Stir all of the ingredients in a mixing bowl until the flour is saturated. It should be the consistency of thick pancake batter. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and let it ferment at room temperature for 3-4 hours. When the poolish is bubbly, place the bowl in the fridge overnight or for up to three days. This should make about 3¼ cups poolish.
Ciabatta (Day 2)
Ingredients:
~ poolish (from Day 1)
~ 3 cups bread flour
~ 1½ tsp. salt
~ 1½ tsp. instant yeast
~ ¾ – 1 cup lukewarm liquid (either water, milk, buttermilk, or a combination of all)
~ olive oil spray
~ 1 – 1½ cups flour for dusting
~ semolina flour or fine ground cornmeal for the pizza stone (or for a parchment-lined baking sheet)
Special equipment needed:
~ a pizza/baking stone (or a parchment paper-lined baking sheet)
~ a linen couche (or a clean tablecloth or cloth bag that you no longer use)
~ metal cake, pie, casserole, or bread pan to fill with water and place in the oven to create steam
~ clean spray bottle filled with cold water
~ dough scraper
How to make it:
1. Remove the poolish from the fridge and leave out for one hour to take off the chill.
2. To make the dough, stir together the dry ingredients in a large mixing bowl. Add the poolish and water/milk and mix until the ingredients form a sticky ball. Rotate the bowl clockwise with one hand while working the dough into a smooth mass with your other hand. Then rotate the bowl counterclockwise a few times to develop the gluten. Repeat– alternately turning the bowl in each direction– for 5-7 minutes until the dough is smooth, soft, and sticky. The dough should come cleanly away from the sides of the bowl.
3. Sprinkle enough flour on the counter to make a bed about 8 inches square. Transfer the dough to the bed of flour and start to gently stretch and fold. You want to be gentle enough not to tear the dough, but fold it as if you were making an envelop, folding four points of it inward to a rectangular shape. Keep a liberal amount of flour handy to dust the top of the dough, and gently pat it down into a rectangle. Wait a couple of minutes to let the dough relax, then fold the dough a second time: lift each end of the dough to stretch it out and fold it over itself to return it to a rectangular shape. Spray the dough with oil, sprinkle flour on top, and loosely cover with plastic wrap. Let ferment at room temperature for 1½ – 2 hours. It will swell, but it does not need to double in size.
4. You can now cut the dough into smaller pieces, depending on how big or small you like your ciabatta. I always cut depending on how many people I want to make a gift of fresh bread to, and usually make about three or four medium-sized loaves with this recipe. Divide the dough with a dough scraper, taking care not to de-gas the dough. Sprinkle generously with flour. Set up a couche. A couche is a linen proofing bed for the dough. I have this Bakers Couche
5. Place an empty steam pan on the oven rack below the pizza stone. Pre-heat the oven to 500 degrees.
6. Dust a wooden peel or the back of a sheet pan with semolina flour or corn meal and ever so gently transfer the dough pieces to the peel/pan using the dough scraper. I usually bake two pieces at the same time. Place directly on the baking stone. Pour 1 cup hot water into the steam pan and close the door. Wait 30 seconds and spray the side walls of the oven with water. Spray again twice more at 30 second intervals. After the last spray, lower the oven temperature to 450 degrees and continue baking for 10 minutes. Then rotate the baking stone or sheet pan for even baking and continue baking for 7-10 minutes. The bread should be golden brown and the flour streaks will give it a dusty look.
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7. Transfer the bread to a cooling rack. The bread will feel rock hard right out of the oven, but will soften up nicely once it’s cooled.
These ciabatta loaves keep for about a week. They are best on the first few days; but wrapped in aluminum-foil once cooled, they will keep their fresh-baked bread scent, and even on the third day, the soft and chewy texture is irresistible.
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Related recipe posts:
> Guest Post: Homemade French Baguettes
> Homemade Chive Butter
> Slow-Roasted Tomato Bruschetta
Trackbacks
- Baked Brie with Fig Jam in Phyllo Dough « spontaneous tomato
- Traditional Semolina Cake | lasesana
- Rhubarb Birthday Galette « spontaneous tomato
- Ciabatta – No need to Knead! | James's Recipes
- Maple Cinnamon Bagels (Guest Post) « spontaneous tomato
- Pain à l’Ancienne Baguettes (Guest Post) « spontaneous tomato
- Guest Post: Homemade French Baguettes | spontaneous tomato
- Pomegranate Focaccia with Dipping Sauce | spontaneous tomato
- 50/50 Sandwich Bread (Guest Post) | spontaneous tomato
spontaneous tomato 
Oh god, this looks positively scrumptious!
Thank you!
Mmmmm! I want to make some massive grilled cheeses with this bread!
We just did that the other night! With chive butter, muenster, sharp cheddar, and tomatoes. It. was. awesome.
That looks delicious Paula. Allison is a lucky girl! :)
Ah shucks! **blushes**
You’ve got me sold! Holy crap, I’m drooling! I’m actually drooling! Ok, time to make bread. I can’t keep doing this to myself. Thank you for the awesome recipe!
You’re welcome. Let us know if you make bread.
I love the feeling of making a decision and having it feel so right! Congrats Paula!
(And bread, lest I forget, I also love bread. This looks amazing!)
Thanks! It’s scary, but I know it will be worth it. I’m already looking forward to kneading all day.
How exciting! And how lucky to get to do something you love. I just wish you were baking in Seattle so I could buy bread from you–these loaves are gorgeous but look like a lot of work. :)
Life is too short to stay at a job that you don’t love. I mean, you spend a good chunk of your life at work, why not love what you do? The bread is a lot of work, but remember, some of the time spent on the bread is done on the first day. When I started, 2 days did seem like a long time and it was intimidating, but you’re breaking the one job into two days so it’s not as hard.
These are beautiful! They look like the perfect combination of crisp and chewy.
Thank you. They are crisp and chewy, especially when they’re toasted.
Amazing! Love it.
Thanks!!
Love it! Used to work at a bakery and Ciabatta bread was a favorite :)
I hear working at a bakery is really hard work. I’m excited. Thanks!
Your ciabatta ia like the Italian.
I’m happy you use the poolish it’s good for the dough
Do you know the ” biga” it better for the dough for the bread
I have a biga recipe, but I haven’t tried it yet. I will though. Saying that my ciabatta is like the Italian is one of the greatest compliments I could have gotten on this. You made my day!
my goodness, stunning ciabatta! thanks for the recipe:)
Thanks!!
Starting next year I really want to work on bread making, and I’m saving this great tutorial for then. Looks so good! I think I will not go back to store bought once I taste this… Thanks for the wonderful guest post ladies!
That’s how I got started. When I got my breadmaker I told myself that I would never buy bread again. It was only until I got rid of my breadmaker and started making bread by hand that I finally lived up to my promise to myself.
Allison still buys bagels whenever she’s in Wisconsin. I should make bagels next time.
Wooo! Finally commenting with my shiny new wordpress account! YAY
There is truly nothing better than freshly baked bread. This looks especially delicious. Sign me up!
Thanks!
Beautiful bread and pictures! I am so looking forward to having gluten again… will try your recipe then. Thanks for sharing!
Awesome! I hope it turns out well!
bookmarked and I will try it somewhere in the future^^ also since you´re the spontaneous tomato – do you have recipes or ideas for green tomatoes?
Nice! Yes, I do! Well just one that I’ve posted on my blog– for Baked “Fried” Green Tomatoes. But I also somewhat recently made some awesome baked stuffed peppers, stuffed with roughly chopped green tomatoes (and cheese…), which I didn’t document at all for the blog.
And if all else fails, there’s always (fresh chopped tomato) salsa! (Or if you have enough green tomatoes, you could use them for my Roasted Tomatillo Salsa, though I’ve never tried it with tomatoes instead of tomatillos.)
My oven’s been broken for weeks now, I can’t wait until it’s all fixed up so I can try some bread recipes out!
Somehow I missed this comment earlier… I’m so sorry to hear about your oven– I would hate living with an oven that didn’t work! (Has it gotten fixed yet?)
Actually, I lived in Japan for three whole years without an oven (and one of those years, I only had a single electric burner plate), so I can truly empathize… Hope it gets fixed soon!
I can’t even imagine! I guess you’d have to get pretty creative haha, yes I got it fixed and made pretzels right away :P
Oh right, the pretzels! Good good.
I did not get creative or make the most of my one-burner situation at all– it was just too affordable, delicious, and easy to go out to eat in Japan. The dish I cooked most frequently during those three years was Thai curry (one pot on the stove; rice made separately in the rice cooker), but I also made myself a lot of dinners that consisted of either ramen + spinach + egg, or chopped up tomatoes + avocados + sriracha.
Omg that looks totalllly drool-worthy. I can’t believe you can make that at home. I must try! My boyfriend would go nuts for this and some baked brie!
It’s so perfect with baked brie! And yep, I continue to be impressed every time Paula makes this at home. :) You should definitely give it a try!
Love it, i am going to try this weekend!
Glad to hear it! Paula & I both hope you enjoy it. :) We haven’t made this in a while actually… I think I will convince Paula to make it this weekend, too!
wow, I need to up my baking game! This is a sexy loaf ;)