Ciabatta

OK here's another recipe request! Anyone got a recipe for ciabatta? We're having an Italian evening in the village hall on Saturday and I've got a few good Italian bread recipes but I'd like to do some of these as well.

tahir

I'd like that too.

mochyn

You're lurking again... Cool

Behemoth

Don't know if this is any help: http://www.shaboomskitchen.com/archives/bread/ciabatta.html

Looks messy.

Did you know that Ciabatta is a recent invention by the Italian baking industry. Inthe late 80's they were concerned at the increasing popularity of French sticks and wanted to create a 'traditional' Italian loaf. To make it on a commercial scale you need a licence as it's a patented process. All the Ciabatta in the UK is made by four or five bakeries.

dougal

Its basically a wet-ish dough, enriched with olive oil, and allowed to over-prove (at least domestically!) Making a 'biga' to begin with will help give a bit of a tang.

tahir

dougal wrote:

Its basically a wet-ish dough, enriched with olive oil, and allowed to over-prove (at least domestically!) Making a 'biga' to begin with will help give a bit of a tang.

Whassat all about then? Don't tease tell us how, what's over-proved?

Northern_Lad

I think it means that instead of millions of very tiny bubbles, there are only lots of big ones.

dougal

A biga is just a mix of flour, water and yeast (no salt), left for a few hours, and then potentially stored up to three days in the fridge. The yeast multiplies, does its stuff, and goes quiet. Its the Italian style of "pre-ferment". Catching it at the stage when the yeast is still going strong would be called a "sponge" in english breadmaking. Letting it go over the top gives a tangy sort of sourdough flavour, but its not achieved with wild yeasts, just good old standard brewer's ("breadmaking") yeast - I use the "instant" sort.

Per 100g flour, about 0.5g of instant yeast and 66ml of water. Mixed and kneaded like an ordinary dough. Cover to prevent skinning and leave for 3 hours or so.
For a ciabatta, put about half the flour into the biga.
Mix the biga with the rest of the flour, water (80/85ml per 100g new flour), salt, oil and more yeast (more like 1.5% of the new flour weight) to make a slightly sloppy, sticky dough. Knead - or rather stretch and fold. Cover & allow to rise. Shape, stretching and folding, and then leave (covered) for at least another hour to proof. (Overproved)
Bake, ideally on a pizza stone or equivalent (I've used an upturned ovenproof ceramic bowl...)

tahir

Thanks dougal, sounds good.

mochyn

Looking forward to trying that. I'll let you know if it works...

mochyn

Stone me, Behemoth: what a fantastic site! Off to the kitchen to experiment Laughing

Behemoth

Thank 'Google'! Very Happy

Northern_Lad

mochyn wrote:

Stone me, Behemoth:

Should that be a pizza stone?

mochyn

Very big groan there, Lad. I'm hoping to restore our bread oven sometime, so I maybe I'll need a pizza stone for that...

As far as the ciabatta goes, I made some using Behemoth's link and it's tremendous. Very tasty and went down well at last night's Italian evening. So, once again, thanks for all the suggestions: Brilliant as usual. I didn't even get drunk!

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