let's make one of Italy's most famous breads ciabatta it's a no need bread and it's known for
its incredible open crumb structure and crunchy crust for most Italians it's the iconic sandwich
bread and unlike many italian breads the date way back to before the Roman Empire this one is quite
recent it was invented less than 50 years ago near Venice and despite its humble beginnings Ciabatta
has quickly taken the World by storm today it's one of the most famous Breads in the entire world
thank you so much to everyone who ordered my new cookbook it would mean the world to me if you left
an Amazon review it really helps out new Authors now let's talk for a minute about the three key
features of proper Ciabatta it's a heavily flowered bread and has this beautiful pattern
of lines along its crust the crust itself should be golden brown and crispy of course the final
feature the big holes are iconic for Tabata I'm going to show you how to achieve all of this to
make a truly authentic Ciabatta Ciabatta starts out like most no need Breads in a bowl combine
water salt and yeast I like to use a square container as it makes things much easier when you
go to shape the dough if you don't have a square bowl or container use a regular round one to keep
things simple I'm using a high protein Italian 00 flour to make this bread any high protein bread
flour works now to be really authentic Ciabatta should be made with mix of flowers head over to
my website for thein recipe where I talk more about how to make a blend of flours made from
different Wheats for this bread if you want to get fancy otherwise for everyone else including me any
good high protein flour will do the job as you can see it's a very wet dough we'll cover it and leave
it for 30 minutes to let the flour hydrate after 30 minutes we're going to use the stretch and
fold technique to work the dough weigh your hands the water will prevent the dough from sticking to
your hand hand you're going to perform your first sets of stretch and folds we're going to do three
sets of stretch and folds take one side of the dough lift stretch and fold the dough bringing
it to the opposite side of the bowl rotate the bowl one quarter and repeat this process another
three times this method helps the dough start to develop gluten cover the bowl and come back in 30
minutes and do the next sets of stretch and folds after 30 minutes weigh your hand again and perform
another other sets of stretch and folds as you continue to perform the stretch and folds you'll
notice the texture of the dough will gradually change from a very Shaggy dough to a smooth soft
stretchy dough that's the dough developing gluten cover the bowl and come back in 30 minutes and do
your last sets of stretch and folds now we are going to put this dough in the fridge
and let it rest overnight this step removes the need to use a Biga which is used for commercial
production of Ciabatta during this time the dough will develop flavor and I personally think it's
a lot easier to deal with cold ciabatta dough than room temperature ciabatta dough it's such
a soft dough that having it cold makes it slightly easier to shape the dough fast forward to the next
day we're ready to make chabata now unlike most jiggly doughs that are baked in a dutch oven or
in a tray like focaccia ciabatta is shaped by hand this can be a bit tricky so I'm going to
share with you a few tips that have really helped me throughout the years this will get messy accept
it it's the beauty of making homemade chabata dust your countertop generously with flour when I say
generously I mean generously remember ciabatta is sticky and it will stick to anything now take
two clean kitchen towels and arrange them on your flour free countertop and again using a
sieve cover them generously with flour this is where having a square container really helps
to shape the dough as it naturally forms a rough Square you're going to flip the dough onto your
floured work area give the container a nice rub be patient eventually the dough will release from
the container and drop onto the table using wet hands you're going to stretch it out into a rough
square and fold the dough in half onto itself this will crave more tension in the dough which will
give you better oven spring when you go to bake it gently tuck in the edges and using a floured
bench scraper cut the dough into four pieces this recipe makes four or mediumsized chabat you can
of course also make smaller ones now using your hands like paddles quickly lift up the dough in
one movement and gently place it onto the flowered tea towel you want to stretch the dough forming a
sort of rectangular ciabatta ciabatta in Italian does mean slipper slippers come in all different
shapes and sizes you want two loaves for each of the kitchen towels gently cover them and let them
rise for 20 minutes while we preheat the oven to 450 50° F ideally switch on the fan if you have
it now ideally you do want to use a large piece of stone using a stone to bake ciabatta is really the
best way but you can also preheat a large baking tray if you don't have one pop that in the oven
and allow it to preheat for a good 20 minutes place a sheet of parchment paper on a topping
board or a coing rack the parchment paper along with a board or a rack will make it easy for you
to slide the chabata into the oven now for the trickiest bit of the whole process you'll need
to flip the dough onto the parchment paper which will then be going into the oven there's various
ways you can do this I'm going to give you two options and you can use whichever option you
prefer the first option is to place the sheet of parchment paper and cooling rack over the dough
making sure to not smush the dough and quickly flip the towel so the bottom will be the top
of the ciabatta the second option is to gently flip the towel and roll roll the dough onto your
hand then place the ciabatta onto the parchment paper and rack now here you can really see those
beautiful lines that are result of a wet flour dough resting and expanding on the tea towels
dust off some of the excess flower and you might think oh no I've lost the lines no you haven't
just lift up the parchment paper and they'll come back we're going to slide the parchment
paper along with the dough onto the pizza stone before closing the oven door throw four ice cubes
into the base of the oven that will create the steam needed to allow the chabata to puff up
before the crust sets bake the chabata for about 20 minutes if you're using the fan option the
parchment paper will Brown as well if it starts to burn though you might want to remove it halfway
through baking allow the tat to cool completely these are crunchy the Crumb is soft these are
delicious now jabata is conceived as a sandwich bread in Italy we like to keep simple you can
never go wrong with Morella mozarella and I love Rughetta I think in English it's called arugula if
you've never had it try it it add so much flavor and salads and sandwiches it's delicious the
book is available worldwide it is officially out and you can order it at the link below