Ciabatta

I'm ready for a chewy, crusty bread.  I found the recipe for ciabatta and that appealed to me.  The night before, I made the biga, allowing it to rest overnight.

Biga

4 ounce (1/2 cup) water
1/2 teaspoon active-dry yeast
5 ounce (1 cup) all-purpose flour

Here's what it looked like at night.

And here's the next morning.

 Ciabatta

17 ounces (2 cups + 2 tablespoons) water
1 teaspoon active-dry yeast
Biga
20 ounces (4 cups) all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons kosher salt

After adding the next ingredients and beating, it was obvious it was a very slack dough.

After 10 minutes with the stand mixer, I had a runny batter.  10 more minutes, still a runny batter.  I gave up and added three more ounces of flour.  It finally came together after 15 more minutes of beating.  But you can see how soft it is.

It is almost like trying to handle jello.

They were very well received.  I guess I'll try this again!

Sadly, one tray got burned on the bottom shelf of the oven before I caught it.  That meant I could not take it to the covered-dish lunch.  I'll have to trim off the dark places and eat them myself.

The recipe says 475º for 20-30 minutes.  Too hot, too long. . . 

No Knead Bread from King Arthur Flour

We went to the Oxford Farmers' Market on Saturday.  Now that we have our first Cherokee Purple tomatoes, it was time for Tomato, Cheddar, and Mayo sandwiches on good bread.  There was an artisan bread baker who had lovely ciabatta bread for sale at $5/loaf.  It was nice to learn that my bread is better!!!  So it was time to get baking.  This time I used the recipe from King Arthur Flour.

After a two-hour initial rise, I left the dough in the refrigerator in a covered plastic tub overnight.

The next morning I shaped half of the dough.

Baked in a 550 oven, turned down to 425 half-way.

The internal temperature was 200, so it was done, but I think it could have stayed a bit longer or at a bit higher temperature.

The crumb was not the big holey type I was expecting.

 Perhaps it needed less or more rising time???

It was delicious, and there is still dough in the refrigerator to make more!

Ciabatta

It all started when the supermarket had a sale on mussels -
buy one, get two free. . .

Free is nice.

But now we needed a starch.
Hmmmmm.
I found a recipe for ciabatta that does not require super-long proofing.
http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/2984/jasons-quick-coccodrillo-ciabatta-bread

Start with 475 g water.

500 g flour

1 t yeast

and into the mixer it goes.

at first it is really gloppy.
I let it rest for 10 minutes or so and then
continued beating until it pulled from the sides of the bowl.

Let rise for a couple of hours,
then shape onto floured parchment.

Preheat the oven to 500F.

Just before putting into the oven slash.
I learned a trick - use your super sharp knife, but wet the blade before each slash.

Looks good.

Smells great!

Very nice crumb.
Not as crunchy as no-knead bread.
I did not add any moisture to the oven

Serve with a seafood soup.

 

The soup is made of:
onion, garlic, celery, and lots of black pepper
shrimp, scallops, mussels.