Ciabatta-bout It: The Hole Story

Ciabatta-bout It: The Hole Story

It’s week two here in the Kitchen Chemistry lab! This week, we have made ciabatta bread that would make your nonna cry!

Bonus ciabatta fact: Ciabatta means slipper in Italian! Pull that fun fact out at Sunday dinner and impress all your Italian relatives!

Here’s how we made it!

First we made the “biga” or sponge, here is what you will need:

Materials for the Biga::

• 1/2 cup all-purpose Flour
• 1/8 tsp Rapid Rise Yeast
• 1/4 cup room temp water
• Sturdy spoon
• small glass bowl
• Measuring Cups and spoons
• plastic wrap

Here are the steps to make your biga:

1. In a bowl, combine the flour, rapid rise yeast and water and stir with a sturdy spoon until a uniform mass forms.
2. Tightly cover the bowl with plastic wrap and let stand at room temperature for at least 8 hours or up to 24 hours. (This step allows the yeast to ferment and generate the flavor for the bread).

This is what your biga should look like:

Now that your yeast is fermented and your biga is ready, you are ready to make ciabatta dough!

Materials:

• 2 baking sheets
• large glass bowl lightly sprayed with non-stick cooking spray
• parchment paper
• scissors
• non-stick cooking spray
• ice cubes or cold water
• kitchen towels
• digital thermometer
• cooling rack
• serrated bread knife

Ingredients for dough – Day 2

• 1/4 teaspoon rapid rise or instant yeast
• 1 and 1/2 tablespoons milk (room temperature)
• 1/3 cup room-temp water
• 1/2 tablespoon olive oil
• 1 cup all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon salt

Making the Dough:

1. The biga spent all night fermenting. This is what ours looked like:



2. Take out your baking sheets, and cut two pieces of parchment to exactly fit each. Lightly spray the parchment with non-stick cooking spray, then dust with flour.
3. Put the sponge and the dough ingredients (flour, salt, yeast, water and milk) in the bowl of a stand mixer with the paddle attachment affixed to the machine.
4. Mix on low speed until combined and a shaggy dough forms, about 1 minute, scraping down the bowl and paddle as needed.
5. Increase the speed to medium-low and continue mixing until the dough becomes a homogenous mass that collects on the paddle and pulls away from the sides of the bowl. This should happen after 4 to 6 minutes of mixing.
6. Change attachments from the paddle to the dough hook and knead the bread on medium speed until smooth and shiny. This will take about 10 minutes. The dough will be very sticky, like so:

   

7. Remove the dough hook.
8. Before covering dough – do the windowpane test (stretch out the dough with your fingers and hold it up to see if you can see through the dough, you are looking for the gluten network to have developed. If you can see through, then you have enough gluten formed!

   

9. Using a spatula or scraper sprayed with cooking spray, transfer the dough to a large bowl, cover tightly with plastic wrap and let dough rise at room temperature for about 1 hour.

   

Shaping the Dough:

1. After an hour, your rise should be complete! Spray a rubber spatula with non-stick cooking spray.
2. Fold the dough over itself by gently lifting and folding the edge of the dough toward the middle. Turn the bowl 90 degrees, and fold again. Turn the bowl and fold the dough 6 more times (for a total of 8 times). Let the dough stand for 30 minutes.

   

3. About 30 min before baking, adjust an oven rack to the lower-middle position and preheat the oven to 450 degrees F.
4. Put another rack in the bottom rack position in the oven and put an empty rimmed baking sheet or dish on this rack (this sheet/dish is for the water/steam, later)
5. Split the risen dough into two lumpy loaves: Using a flat, firm rubber/plastic spatula or scraper that has been sprayed with cooking spray, place HALF the kneaded, risen dough onto one side of a baking sheet covered with parchment paper, piling the dough up into a sloppy rectangle/oval until it is ~2 inches deep at the center.
6. Use the hard edge of the spatula to ‘”sever” off the dough when you have half. Do the same with the second half. You should have two loaves now
7. Use your oiled spatula or hands to gently shape each lump into a rectangle

   

Baking the Bread:

1. Remember the preheated oven and baking racks? Those are coming back into play now. Check that the oven is at 450F and that the racks are in the correct position.
2. Measure out 1 cup of ice in your glass measuring cup.
3. Place the baking sheets in the preheated oven and at the same time, dump the ice into the empty baking sheet/dish that is on the bottom rack in the oven. The ice melts creating steam – the steam keeps the surface of the dough from hardening too quickly, which allows the dough to expand more.
4. Bake until the crust is deep golden brown and the loaves register 210 degrees F when a kitchen thermometer is inserted into the lower third of the loaf – about 20-22 minutes.

   

5. Slide the parchment with the baked loaves onto a cooling rack and allow to cool completely before slicing.

And viola! Here are our completed rolls!

Video – the password to watch is ciabatta. Sorry, we were having technical difficulties