Ciabatta Bread

Vegan Chicken Sandwich on Homemade Ciabatta

I make several different types of bread regularly: my sandwich bread, French bread, Italian bread, cornbread, tortillas... but my absolute favorite is Ciabatta. This bread is crispy on the outside and chewy on the inside, with a porous inside perfect for absorbing broth, butter, olive oil with a little rosemary, pb, pretty much anything your heart desires. The incredibly simple recipe has only four ingredients: flour, water, yeast, and salt. Of course, I mix in some White Whole Wheat flour to up the nutrient content.

I have made this recipe with both a standing mixer and by hand, and every time it has been delicious. The big benefit of the standing mixer is honestly the fatigue factor. This dough takes some serious endurance to mix and knead by hand. 

I do have to give credit where credit is due: it is more or less an exact copy of The Kitchn's ciabatta recipe by Emma Christensen. Besides a few tips in the instructions, my only other real change was substituting White Whole Wheat flour.

This recipe does require a little prep work the night or day before. One of the ingredients is biga, a spongy starter which lends ciabatta its irresistibly chewy interior. Do not skip this step! The biga needs to sit for at least 8 hours to develop its unique textural properties. 

Ingredients:

Biga

-½ C Water
-½ tsp yeast
-1 C all-purpose flour

Ciabatta

-2 C + 2 Tbs water
-1 tsp yeast
-biga
-3 C all-purpose flour
-1 C white whole wheat flour
-2 tsp salt

To make the biga:

1. In a medium sized bowl, dissolve the yeast in the water. Add flour, and stir into a thick paste. 
2. Now, give it at least 50 brisk stirs with a fork. The pasty ball may stick to your fork: just fling it off and keep stirring. 

3. Cover and let sit overnight, or at least 8 hours. The next day, when you're ready to make the bread, it will look like this:

Biga: the secret to ciabatta's irresistible interior.

A soupy, doughy substance covered with craters and full of holes. Like the surface of the moon.

To make the ciabatta:

1. In a large bowl (or the bowl of your standing mixer), dissolve the yeast in water.
2. Scrape the biga into the bowl. I recommend using a plastic spatula because this dough is very sticky, and would be hard to remove from a wooden spoon. Once all the biga is in the yeast-water mix, squeeze it by hand into goopy, stringy blobs.
3. Add flour and salt and mix well. Let the dough sit for 10-20 minutes to allow the water to absorb completely.

4. If you're using a standing mixer, this is where you're really going to feel the difference: using your bread hook, set the mixer to medium (I use 4 on a Kitchen Aid) and let it go for 15 minutes. If the dough starts to form a ball which climbs the hook, stop the mixer and knock it off. Slowly but surely you'll see the dough begin to form something coherent.

Look at the baby go! A hard process to replicate by hand unless you are very strong and very patient.

Otherwise:
Knead for at least 15 minutes. Really slap it around. It will take some elbow grease, yet slowly but surely you will see and feel the dough begin to develop structural integrity and even texture. It sticks to your hands horribly, so flour them every so often.
In both cases:
It should look smooth and creamy with a glossy shine.

Smooth and creamy with a glossy shine.

5. Cover bowl, and rest for two hours. You will find the dough has at least doubled in size. At least in my standing mixer, it was overflowing the bowl.
6. Dust a clean surface with copious amounts of flour (I generally use White Whole Wheat flour for this purpose). Gently pour and scrape the dough from the bowl onto this surface. Dust the top with yet more flour.

7. With a large knife, cut the dough into rolls or loaves. Really, the shapes and sizes are your choice, but you can make sixteen good-sized rolls. If the dough sticks to the knife, it means you didn't put enough flour on top.

Knife should cut right through, if it doesn't, add more flour.

8. Put a piece of parchment paper on a baking sheet. Carefully transfer the rolls/ loaves onto the baking sheet. Gently press and dimple, pressing in maybe one or two centimeters.

Carefully transferred.

Gently pressed and dimpled.

9. Preheat oven to 475 F. Let rolls/ loaves rest for 30 minutes.

Golden brown, crispy/chewy perfection.

10. Bake for 20 to 30 minutes, until golden brown. Allow to cool. Serve or store. It makes a delicious Vegan Chicken Sandwich (visible in the first picture in this post), so stay tuned tomorrow for Vegan Chicken Cutlets.

That spongy interior is thirsty for some broth, butter, jam, or olive oil!