I have been busy baking, making sourdough bread and all. I guess I should really start updating my baking activity on this blog...
So Mark has invited some friends over for a New Year dinner and he asked me to make some bread as appy. Since we'll be dipping the bread in balsamic vinegar and olive oil, I'll have to make the kind of bread that is good for dipping, i.e. ciabatta!
Generally speaking, ciabatta is a yeast based bread. Some will use a pre-fement like a biga. Some sourdough die-hard will subsititue the yeast part with sourdough starter. Since I need to make a no fail bread for guests, I decided to follow a ciabatta recipe that was posted on the fresh loaf forum:
http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/2984/jasons-quick-coccodrillo-ciabatta-bread
This recipe has been receiving rave reviews by many users. I have heard about this post for quite a while, but never got a chance to give it a try (my preference is still making sourdough bread). Now will be the time.
Ciabatta is a wet dough, and the high hydration content has contributed to the big holes and open crumb. Yes, I am aware that the dough will be very slack, but I didn't expect that it wouldl be so slacky that it was almost impossible to shape it into a form. The dough simply kept spreading on my brand new marble board (my X'mas present!). I was so relieved when I finally pushed them into the oven.
The taste was amazing. I have no regret. Will I make it again? Possible not. I'll try out some other ciabatta recipes.
No comments:
Post a Comment