Ciabatta - it takes a day...but it's worth it! I swear!
Ciabatta is my favourite bread! I have paid a ridiculous amount of money for a single loaf of ciabatta (and I would happily do it again!), but guess what, you can make it at home for pennies! Literally! My food costing comes in around $0.30 whaaaaaatttt! Amazing! It is a labour of love though because it takes about 24 hours to make, but what else are we doing, it’s quarantine! If I am going to have 24 hours to dedicate to a bread it’s now! Yay! This delicious bread starts the day before with a pre-ferment called a biga. A biga is basically a lump of firm dough, I think in theory it was a lump of the dough from your bread baking the day before, but obviously if I made dough it would all be eaten that day. That lump of dough then sits for ideally about 18 hours at room temperature so it can gain lots of flavour and grow some natural yeasts, giving it that sourdough tang without needing to worry about a sourdough starter, because that takes like a week and I can’t be bothered!
Ciabatta Bread before going into my belly!
Ciabatta
Yield: 1 loaf (approximately 10”x4” rectangle)
Biga:
2/3 cup Flour
1/4 cup Warm Water
pinch of Instant Yeast
Final Dough:
1 1/4 cup Flour
1/2 teaspoon Instant Yeast
2/3 cup Warm Water
1 teaspoon Salt
Biga that has sat for 12-18 hours at room temperature
In your mixer with a dough hook combine your Biga ingredients - 2/3 cup flour, 1/4 cup warm water and pinch of yeast. Mix for 3 minutes on a low speed.
You should have a little dough ball, this is your Biga! Place your biga in a greased bowl with a lid/saran wrap and leave at room temperature for 12-18 hours. It should become bubbly and rise.
Once your Biga is ready to go, place it into your mixer along with all of the other ingredients for the final dough. Mix with a dough hook for 4 minutes. This dough is going to look very sticky and goopy, that is perfect!
Place the dough into a greased bowl or pan that has a lid and let sit and proof at room temperature for about 1 hour or until doubled.
Once your dough it ready you will fold your dough ball in half 4 times, I like to use a rectangle pan instead of a bowl when I make ciabatta because it has 4 sides, and i can turn the pan for each fold so I make sure to do this 4 times. Grab the edge of the dough and fold it in half, then turn the pan or bowl 90 degrees and repeat, do this until you get back to where you started and your 4 folds will be complete! Now put the lid on and let sit at room temperature for 1 hour.
Now that your dough has sat, you will repeat the 4 folds like we did earlier. Then place a lid on and let it sit at room temperature for 30 minutes.
Our dough is now ready to shape. Grab a large baking tray and dust it fairly heavily with flour.
Place your dough gently onto the tray and gently stretch the dough into an approximate 10”x4” rectangle shape. Try not to squish the dough, we don’t want to collapse too much of the volume.
Now heavily dust the top of the ciabatta bread with flour, then drape a clean tea towel on top and let it sit at room temperature for 30 minutes.
While the dough is resting, heat your oven up to 450*F and place a clean metal tray on the bottom rack of your oven, this needs to be hot when we bake our bread.
Once your dough is ready to go, place it into the hot oven, on the rack above the one with the hot tray, then grab 1-1 1/2 cups of water and carefully pour it onto the metal pan that is on the bottom rack and its going to SIZZLE and create STEAM! Quickly close the oven to capture all the steam and bake your ciabatta for about 20 minutes. DON’T OPEN THE OVEN! If you take a peak into the oven it’s going to release the steam we just created and we want to keep that steam in there to allow our dough to grow and expand in the oven before it crusts up.
Your ciabatta will be done when it is golden brown and when you tap it with your finger it should sound hollow.
Place your cooked loaf onto a wire rack to cool (this helps steam from forming under your loaf and giving you a soggy bottom!)
Now eat your AMAZING ciabatta bread! I’m eating mine now! mmmm