Homemade Item: CIABATTA BREAD

My husband asked for Panini sandwiches for dinner this week. He rarely requests meals so when he does I try to honor those. We usually have these on ciabatta bread so I decided to try making ciabatta bread myself. I found this re
cipe online; it looked simple enough so I jumped right in.

I started by measuring out some flour,

Then a little yeast,

Then I added salt,

And finally some water.

I used the paddle attachment to begin mixing the ingredients.

The recipe says to mix until all the ingredients are “roughly mixed” which was about 30 seconds.Then the dough needed to rest for 10 minutes.

After the rest, it was time to mix/knead the dough. Here is what the dough looked like after the first 10 minutes:

After the first 10 minutes I switched to the dough hook.

20 minutes:

30 minutes:

After 30 minutes of intense mixing the dough was still pretty soupy. The recipe said it should be pulling away from the sides of the bowl. I ended up adding four more tablespoons of flour, one at a time and then mixing for an additional 10 minutes.

Here is one of the containers I use for bread rising. Somewhere I read that bread likes to rise up and not out so a tall square container works better than a large shallow bowl.

To oil the container I just used good Ol’ Pam.

This dough was so sticky it was hard to get out of the mixing bowl.

The recipe says the dough should triple in size so I marked on the container where it started.

After the first hour:

After the second hour:

*Gasp* was what I did when I tried to dump the dough out of the rising container. This is the goopiest dough I’ve ever worked with.

The next step was to divide the dough glob into 3 or 4 pieces which seemed impossible considering how liquid the dough was.

Because the dough was too sticky for my bare hands to work with I used these two great tools and a ton of flour. I ended up squishing and spreading the dough while at the same time dumping flour on top and then folding it in. I was very unsure of how the bread would turn out at this point.

After a 45 minute second rise the bread was still globs of dough on the counter.

The recipe said to stretch the dough out to a ten inch rectangle and then flip over. I attempted this with my bare hands and failed completely because the dough was still very sticky. So, I got out my trusty tools again to flip and stretch the dough. To get the dough globs on to the baking sheet I had to scoop and scrape with my hands and then plop the dough down. My husband was helping to hold the baking sheets and said the dough globs looked like snot balls. I had no hope now of the dough turning into bread.

But, I baked them anyways to see what would happen. 15 minutes later something actually came out of the oven. They are not pretty, but at least they turned into a loaf of something. Hopefully when they cool they will be eatable. Cross your fingers!

When the loaves were finally cool, I cut them open. To my surprise they looked like ciabatta bread! There is a very thin hard crust and the inside is extremely moist with a nice open crumb.

This bread turned into quite a delightful little sandwich. Enjoy!

Overall I would totally make this recipe again and I think I’m going to. However, I’m going to add more flour in the beginning and will be a little braver with bread recipes that only have four ingredients! Bread can be scary, but can teach you a great lesson about enduring to the end.

Ciabatta Bread
Recipe inspired by Jason's Quick Coccodrillo Ciabatta Bread

Ingredients:

4 and 1/2 cups bread flour
3 cups water
2 teaspoons active dry yeast
1 tablespoon salt

Directions:

*Disclaimer: this dough is really sticky and gooey. See the bread out through the end, it's worth it.

Mix all the ingredients together in the bowl of a stand mixer. Mix for about 30 seconds and then let the dough rest for 10 minutes.

After the  rest mix the dough with the dough hook on medium high for 10 to 30 minutes or until the dough starts to pull away from the edges of the bowl.

Transfer the dough to a well oiled rising container and let sit until triple in size, about 3 hours.

Pour the dough out onto a well floured counter and divide into four pieces. Allow the dough to sit for 45 minutes.

Start the oven preheating at 500 degrees.

Roll the dough into a 10 inch long rectangle. Flip over and place on a baking sheet.

Bake for 15 to 20 minutes or until the inside reaches 205 degrees.