Since the delicious experience that was challah, I've been engaged in a multi-week foray into ciabatta. My first exposure to a
ciabatta recipe comes from watching the bread week episode of
The Great British Baking Show. In the U.S. version of the show, it's from season 1; I believe that's series 4 of the BBC version. In the season 1 masterclass, Paul Hollywood walks through his procedure for how to make ciabatta. His technique involves carefully shaping the dough after the first rise without knocking out much of the air. This allows for a quick second rise, a flavorful loaf that retains all of the fermentation by-products. It also produces lots of oven spring.
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| The finished plain ciabattas, shaped using the Hollywood method |
I've previously attempted
ciabatta several times, and it's really tricky to get a beautiful loaf using this method.
The Bread Baker's Apprentice does not recommend Hollywood's technique, so it includes a longer second rise.
The...Apprentice also includes multiple variants on the standard ciabatta, and I've attempted two. The first one was the standard
ciabatta using the Hollywood technique. For the second attempt, I tried a mushroom-enriched
ciabatta using the Reinhardt method. I'll be comparing the two techniques as I discuss my results.
The Bread Baker's Apprentice includes instructions for two different versions of the ciabatta dough. The two variants employ different pre-ferment stages. One uses a
biga, which is basically a ball of regular dough. The other uses a
poolish, which is far looser and much easier to integrate into the dough. I've tried both, and I like the
poolish better, so I've used that method for both preparations.
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| Crumb on the plain ciabatta. Note the large, irregular air holes. |
Later Note: This post has lingered in an incomplete state for months. In fact, I'd forgotten about it since February. I'm posting it now in the state where I left it. I'll include the plain and stuffed ciabatta images in my upcoming mega-post.
