Recipe of the Week – Ciabatta Bread
February 19, 2009 at 11:31 am 2 comments
(From the Breads Collection at emealsforyou.com)
Ciabatta
I have no patience; this is not just my wife telling me, I know this of myself. One way to overcome this was to learn how to bake bread. You see baking bread takes patience, lots of patience. Most people think it is hard to bake bread; truth is it is fairly easy but requires short periods of activity and then lots of waiting, patience is a virtue, especially in bread baking.
We are talking breads that need to rise, yeast breads not sweet breads. The main goal for those of us, who are learning patience, is a golden chewy,crust and an airy, moist “crumb” the dough part of the bread with lots of holes. See, here is where it gets a little dicey, trying to get all those things to happen by themselves. Most breads require kneading, folding and “TLC” and maybe some luck. Those of us who bake bread talk to everyone we know who bakes bread to try to find the answers. We trade recipes, equipment and mostly well wishes. So when Capt. Jim (Capt. Jim’s Tomato Focaccio ) sent me this recipe and told me it worked and was very easy, I decided to give it a go.
So if you find your life is a series of 5 minutes bursts, you like great bread or maybe you need to learn some patience here is Capt. Jim’s recipe.
Note the holes and moist "crumb"
Ciabatta
| Complexity: | Easy |
| Serves: | 8 |
| Category: | Breads |
| Meal: | N/A |
| 4 | cup | flour |
| 0.25 | tsp | yeast, dried |
| 1.5 | tsp | salt, kosher |
| 2 | cup | water |
Add flour, yeast and salt to a large mixing bowl; stir in warm (not hot) water. Mix until a a very soft, very sticky dough forms. Cover with plastic wrap and let sit in a cool, dry place for 18 hours. Place dough on a floured surface, punch down and fold into itself in thirds. Place a piece of parchment paper; a little bigger than the dough on a work surface, flour the paper. Place dough on the parchment and shape into a long loaf. Cover with a white cotton towel and let rise for 2 hours. Dough will spread out but not up.
Preheat oven to 425º. Cut off any excess parchment showing around the ciabatta. Slide a pizza peel or an upside down cookie sheet under the bread. Slide the bread, paper side down onto the pizza stone or preheated cookie sheet. Spray the bread in the oven with a spray bottle with just water every 2 minutes for the first 12 minutes; this will give you a good crust. Bake for 35 minutes, until lightly brown. Remove from oven and let it cool for 10 minutes before cutting. May be frozen.
(Look for more recipes like this at emealsforyou.com)
Entry filed under: Misc. Tags: baked bread, bread, ciabatta, crunchy bread, crusty bread, easy bread, great bread, homemade bread.
1.
Elizabeth | February 22, 2009 at 1:50 pm
When you say “mix”, do you mean like stir with a big wooden spoon? Or does it require a stand mixer and a dough hook? That’s what keeps me from attempting to make bread from scratch, I’m so intimidated by the dough.
2.
emealsforyou | February 22, 2009 at 2:11 pm
Hi Elizabeth,
I am really glad you asked the question. The answer is that this is a very “wet” dough and can be made by hand mixing. Our grandmothers made bread every day without a mixer and bread hook. I use my bread hook all the time but sometimes there are occasions when the clean-up is easier just to hand mix the dough. Please give this wonderful bread a try and let us know how you did. The main drawback of the ciabatta is that it takes a full day to rise so you have to wait a day until you can bake and eat it.