breadsecrets blog

I’ve made ciabatta lots of times, usually with my own version of Carol Field’s recipe in “The Italian Baker” (an excellent book for Italian cakes and biscuits/cookies as well as bread. You can buy the book here.

This time, I made the poolish version from The Bread Baker’s Apprentice. A poolish is a wet pre-ferment - Italian bakers would probably use the word biga for all pre-ferments, whether wet or firm. There is little difference between the two recipes, except that Field uses all-purpose/plain flour while Reinhart uses bread flour. Italian bakers would use Tipo 00 flour which is lower in protein than US/UK bread flour, and therefore will have less gluten in the dough, making it more tender to the bite. I tend to use either all plain/AP flour or a mixture of plain/AP and bread flour. This time I made the poolish with plain flour and added bread flour for the final dough. I left the poolish in the fridge for about 36 hours.

Reinhart’s recipe specifies adding 3oz of liquid (I used milk, to help tenderise the crumb) plus as much extra as needed to produce a wet sticky dough that sticks to the bottom of the bowl during kneading. I didn’t weigh exactly, but I used around another 3oz. Having seen the finished bread, I should have added more - the dough would have been harder to handle but I’d have got a more authentic result with the typical large holes in the crumb.

A few words about handling and shaping ciabatta: firstly, you can use absolutely loads of flour on the worktop and your hands to stop the wet dough sticking - so long as it is not mixed into the dough, it won’t spoil the texture of your bread. A dough scraper (flat metal or plastic blade with a handle) is an absolute must for separating and moving this kind of dough (I’ll put an amazon link on here when I have time!). Try not touch the dough with the very tips of your fingers, and when you do touch it, imagine that it’s red hot and you don’t want to burn your fingers.

While finishing the shaping of the ciabattas, I like to use some durum wheat flour (Dove’s Farm organic pasta flour) which, unlike ordinary wheat flour, will not dissolve into the surface of the dough, thus giving a nice floury rustic look to the finished loaf.

Ciabatta proving in parchment couche

When you bake ciabatta, do be sure to leave it until you have a thoroughly browned crust to get the best flavour. Here are a couple of photos of my results this time: as I said, I should have added more liquid to get bigger holes, but the bread still tasted excellent, with a pronounced rich flavour from the preferment.

Ciabattas fresh out of the oven

Sliced ciabatta showing crumb structure

Obviously I’m spending more time baking than blogging with this challenge as I’ve made three more recipes since my last post.

I’ve made the bagels from The Bread Baker’s Apprentice quite a few times. It’s enough of an archetypal recipe to deserve its own entry on the main site here: Bagel Recipe. This recipe is my own variation on Reinhart’s - there’s not a great deal of difference: primarily, I’ve rounded the quantities to metric and lengthened the fermentation of the sponge, then eliminated the final retardation of the shaped bagels in the fridge for two reasons - firstly, the dough will mature just as well before shaping as after; secondly, I hardly ever have room in my fridge for a dozen shaped bagels (and I have a large fridge by UK standards, although the typical home fridge in the US is a lot bigger).

Home made bagels

The next task in the BBA challenge was brioche. I opted for “middle class” brioches containing 50% butter:flour (the rich version contains 87.7%) as well as five eggs and a little sugar and milk. The butter is introduced gradually, making a very soft and sticky dough which does not feel anything like any other bread dough I’ve made. After an initial rise, I shaped 6 petites brioches a tete in moulds, and used the remaining dough for a sandwich loaf.

Shaped petites brioches

(Please excuse the blurry pictures, I couldn’t find my usual camera.)

After about one and a half hours, the dough had risen impressively.

Risen petites brioches a tete

I gave the brioches a quick egg wash before baking for about 20 minutes. The oven spring was spectacular, particularly on the sandwich loaf (unfortunately I didn’t get a picture).

Finished petites brioches a tete

Underside of brioches a tete

I ate one of the brioches while it was still warm. Yummy! As someone else has said, it’s like a light buttery cloud. Shared some with some friends, gave some (spread with nutella) to my children. Had another one a couple of hours later with a cup of tea. Still yummy! Had another one for breakfast the next day. Ugh! Too eggy. Tried again later that afternoon, and threw the remainder to the birds. I think this is one bread you really have to eat fresh - I thought maybe all that enrichment would help it keep, but it really didn’t. I think I’ve been put off brioche for life - interesting process, all the same. Nothing ventured, and all that …

So, perhaps I should have realised yesterday that I wasn’t going to enjoy Casatiello too much - it’s basically brioche (albeit with less butter than the other recipe) with some added sausage/cured meat and provolone cheese. I’m vegetarian so I used Redwood Food Company’s “Cheatin’” chorizo style and pepperoni style, and I couldn’t find provolone, so I substituted a mixture of mozzarella, mature cheddar, and parmesan, all coarsely grated. It didn’t have the spectacular oven spring of the brioche, and when I tasted the first couple of slices, I really liked it. However, this morning, I had another piece and there was that slightly eggy taste once again. However, I did freeze half of it as soon as it was cool, so maybe that part will still taste as good as it did straight from the oven.

Casatiello

The next challenge is challah, which is another egg enriched bread. I’m going to skip it and go straight on to Ciabatta, which I’ve made plenty of times. I usually use the recipe (or at least my version of it) from “The Italian Baker” but perhaps this time, I’ll go back to Reinhart to compare.