Let’s Make Ciabatta
Let’s Make Ciabatta
Ciabatta is an Italian bread similar to the crust and crumb of a French baguette but with some variations. It’s sort of free form where the baguette has a definite size and shape. There’s a lot more water to raise the hydration level. Whereas a French baguette is about 60% water, the ciabatta is 80%! That’s a big difference.
Ciabatta is not a very old bread. It’s only been around since the eighties. It was invented by Arnoldo Cavallari to compete with the French baguette. Since it seems to be everywhere, you may think it’s a traditional Italian bread. It’s not.
We are still in the lean dough realm. There are versions with olive oil in them, but I prefer the plain non-fat one. I put some whole wheat in my poolish but you can make the poolish from all white flour if you like. I think the whole wheat gives a little added texture and flavor to the dough.
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What are the basic ingredients?
Chef Tom Ciabatta
bread flour 100% 400g
Water 60% 300g
kosher salt 2% 10g
instant yeast 1.5% 7g
All of poolish 40% 200g
Poolish (Pre-ferment)
Water 100% 100g
Instant yeast .01% pinch
Whole wheat flour 50% 50g
Bread flour 50% 50g
½ sheet pan
Bench scraper
Stainless steel bowl for mixing
Parchment paper
Baking stone (optional)
Water sprayer for steaming
Straight dough method with poolish
The poolish is an interesting way to get your yeast and flour fermenting. Often we think of a pre-ferment as a way to get the yeast producing gas. It is that. But it’s also a way to ferment some of your flour. It’s usually a good idea to ferment 20-30 of your flour. What does this do? It has several benefits. It promotes enzyme activity in the flour which in turn becomes more interesting flavor and texture for your bread. It also has the benefit of hydrating some of your flour before the main fermentation begins. Since we are using 10% whole wheat in the formula, the added time of hydration for the whole grain flour is key too. Once it is fermented, it makes it easier to ferment the rest of the flour once the dough is fully mixed.
After an hour of hydration rest, you will give it a stretch and fold. Wet your hands and pull the dough out of the bowl with a flexible bench scraper. I find it’s much easier to do it on the bench. The dough will become easier to stretch but it will be relatively dry compared to other doughs. Get the dough stretched out to a rectangle about the size of a ½ sheet pan. Spread the soaker over ⅔ of the dough. Fold the dough with no soaker over ⅓ of the dough. Then fold the last third towards the middle to form sort of a letter fold. Then give it a little more stretch and fold in thirds again. Return it to the bowl. It will look pretty shaggy again. Don’t worry, the rest of the folds will take care of that and make it smoother. I like to give 2-3 more stretches over about 90 minutes to 2 hours with 20 minute rests between them. Then you are done mixing. Place it in a covered container or a ziplock bag in the refrigerator overnight.
The next day, the dough should have blown up the bag a bit. If it did not, don’t worry, the bread is fine. Remove the dough from the container and scale out two equal pieces. This formula makes just over a kilo of dough. Give the pieces a rough round. The reason for this is to give the bread some general shape. The real shaping will happen after resting. Cover the pieces and give them 5-10 minutes of bench rest. They will spread out a bit. You are about to give them some more structure.
Give the bench a relatively generous dusting of flour. Gently stretch the dough out to a rough rectangle. If you are making 100g gram rolls, you can cut the stretched out dough into 6 pieces. Try to cut them all the same size. But there will be differences between them. They are pretty free form at this point. Put some flour on your bench scraper to make the cutting easier. Another way to go is to just cut the dough in 2 or 3 pieces. Gently place the doughs on parchment paper or a sheet pan that has been dusted with flour. Cover the doughs with a towel and let them proof until they have risen to double in volume. It may go as fast as an hour or up to 3 hours. It depends on your environment.
While the breads are proofing, preheat your oven to 500°F. You’ll want the baking stone very hot before baking. Once the doughs have doubled or more than doubled in volume, gently slide the dough and parchment onto the peel if you are using a baking stone. Then slide the whole thing in the oven. Repeat the process with the other doughs. If I am doing small rolls (75-100g), I may do them in batches. I don’t want to overload the oven or cool off the stone too much. Don’t worry about the parchment burning. It won’t. And when you have a good brown bottom crust, the parchment will just slip off after baking. The tops should be a light to medium brown as well. The crusts may seem extremely hard at the end of baking. Rest assured that this is a soft bread. The crust will soften and the interior will have a creamy soft open crumb.
When they reach their desired color, retrieve them from the oven using a peel or tongs. Place them on a wire rack to cool. This is important as there is still moisture in the breads that needs to evaporate. You have evaporated a lot of moisture in the oven. But there is more that evaporates during the cooling process. Have a look at my baking workflow here for more information.
These breads can be used for sandwiches, just spreading butter or pesto on or eating plain. They are wonderful. The inner crumb should be open and cellular like. If yours is a bit dense on the first try, give the next batch a bit more proofing time. The critical steps in this bread are the gluten development, the fermentation time and the proofing time. They are all equally important. Good luck on this bread and happy baking!
Chef Tom
Watch here how to mix and bake ciabatta!
