Although this is the latest posting of a bread from The Bread Baker's Apprentice, this Ciabatta was actually the first bread that I made from this book. The pictures have been lingering on my camera and my computer for a while now; I'm not sure why it took me so long to post. This Ciabatta is the version made with the poolish. I assembled the poolish the night before and was greeted in the morning by a nice bubbly starter. Assemblindg the dough was fine because I used the KitchenAid. Ciabatta's reputation of being a wet dough and difficult to manage by hand (I know that it can be done!!) preceeds it so I decided to just let the machine work this one. Rising and folding from there were no biggies, just alot of impatient waiting. I'm working on that! I portioned the dough into three loaves and allowed them to rise once more. I tried to figure out Reinhart's shaping instructions but I couldn't. The loaves looked nothing like his in the book. So I turned them over and they turned out looking presentable. I do think that all the handling sadly burst all the bubbles that the yeast worked so hard to create... which meant a pretty closed crumb. That was disappointing. Next time I won't shape them, I will just place the loaves as they were cut onto their rising surface, looks be damned. My steaming technique was also lacking, which accounts for the pale color. I really need to get me a stone!! The flavor was ok; I think I much prefer the Ciabatta from Rose Levy Beranbaum's The Bread Bible. I will try the Ciabatta with Biga sometime soon to see if there is any recognizable difference. Until then, check out this week's Yeastspotting for more yeasted goodies!
The poolish ingredients..
...all mixed.
Nicely risen.
The remaining dough ingredients...
...plus the poolish.
Mixing to combine with the flat beater..
...and then upgrading to the dough hook for some thorough kneading.
The dough prepared for a fold.
Half a fold...
...completed fold.
Here's the dough after its complete rising.
Portioned into three.
My brand new couche!!!! It's huge!!! I feel like a pro!!!
The dough resting on the couche.
Very oddly shaped, I know.
Turned over and proofing.. ready to be baked!
The final product! Aside for its pale hue, it looks kinda nice!
PDF
3 comments:
I'm making ciabatta right now, actually. Not from Reinhar but I'll post about it soon! Slack doughs are fun to work with.
As much as I like Reinhart I don't really understand his ciabatta shaping. But it looks like your came out beautifully anyway!
Looks great! I made this very same bread this weekend. I used a tip a picked up from Maggie Glezer's book. If you move your baking rack to the 2nd to top shelf in your oven it helps breads with moist doughs steam themselves and you get really rich color that way.
Post a Comment