Sunday Baking Series: Tackling Ciabatta

Bread may be one of the most intimidating things to try your own hand at, especially if you already have access to good-quality bread from a professional baker nearby.   Yes, most recipes look more like chapters out of a textbook and use weird words like “biga” and “starter” and “shaggy” and list cook times at somewhere around 26-48 hours.

But hear me out- baking bread is a wonderful exercise in using your senses in the kitchen.  It teaches you to optimize the time spent in the kitchen completing the short between-rise steps, and helps you learn patience while allowing the dough to rest and rise.  The ingredients are cheap, so risk is low.  And at the very least, you get a warm and cozy, if imperfect, loaf or two to take pride in and share with friends (or not).

As Hubtastic and I have ventured into the baking world together, homemade ciabatta was at the top of our list after we had a fantastic ciabatta from a little market in Vermont.  We researched a few recipes, and, as usual, America’s Test Kitchen won for most promising, though King Arthur looked pretty similar.

I make bread relatively frequently, but it’s usually the oh-shoot-I-didn’t-plan-ahead version that involves no “starter” or long rise periods.  It’s delicious, but we were going for something a little more old-school.  Because we were doing it as a day-off project, and as a team, we did not care how long it would take.

I’ve heard the term “starter” many times without really understanding the point.  Basically, it’s a mass of flour, water, and a little yeast that sits out overnight (or longer) to develop, but I’ve always been afraid of it.  I kill plants regularly, so I assumed my starter would die as well.

Ciabatta has a starter called a “biga,” just to make things more intimidating.  It took about 45 seconds to create and was self-sustaining overnight, so I suppose I had nothing to be afraid of.  I take it the point of a starter is to help with rise and flavor… we had yet to see whether that really held true.

Dumping in the rest of the ingredients was very easy, especially with a kitchen scale.  We had to watch attentively as the uber-sticky dough splattered around inside the bowl for a few minutes, and then, suddenly, pulled away from the edges into a coherent blob right as we were getting worried that it would never happen.  It was kinda magical.

After the initial kneading was over, the dough was comically goopy.  You wouldn’t want to stick your hand in there because you’d never get it back.  Patience at this point is key.

With the exception of two 1-minute burst of activity, there was just a lot of waiting involved.  We had to keep ourselves busy to prevent any over-eager deflation of our fledgling dough.  As the dough matured, it became less intimidatingly sticky and more like a wet sweater.

When it was finally time to shape the loaves, we were surprised and delighted to discover how silky the dough (sprinkled with plenty of flour) felt to the touch.  There were lots of very silly air bubbles that we had to resist popping- this isn’t bubble wrap!- but the dough itself was the texture and weight of a jersey cotton sheet, the kind that you actually don’t mind folding because it’s so comfortingly soft.

There was a little bit of springback when we stretched it out, but there was enough give that shaping the dough wasn’t frustrating.  Also, ciabatta is meant to look a little wonky, so there isn’t much pressure to get it perfect.

Baking went smoothly, but I had a pretty bad cold so I couldn’t use my nose to tell when the bread was nearing doneness.  Grrr.  Instead, I had to rely on sight – the bread reached light golden brown and got very puffy, feel – the loaves were light for their size and had a papery-but-solid crust, and sound- the loaves sounded pleasantly hollow when tapped on the bottom.  Fortunately, trusty America’s Test Kitchen also gave an internal temp of 210F, so we had a back-up measure thanks to the meat thermometer.

The cooling period was excruciating.  Literally to the minute, we tore into the smaller loaf and proceeded to eat the whole thing.  I think using a starter really did contribute to the flavor- even with my nose all stuffed up, I could tell there was a more complex yeasty-ness balanced with salt.  The sticky dough had transformed into a silky interior full of giant holes.  The top crust was salty and springy, while the bottom provided some structure and crunch.

I hope this has convinced you to try your hand at making bread.  Keep in mind that this was our first time- with a little planning (but not much), a little active time (but not much), and a little observational skill (but without my sense of smell)- and we had devouringly-good success.  There’s really nothing as comforting and rewarding as a loaf of homemade bread.