About this bread
Delicious ciabatta bread is Italy’s response to the baguette. Made with simple ingredients, the technique is what makes it so flavorful. Ciabatta is a wetter dough than most loaves, and has only five ingredients: flour, water, yeast, salt, and olive oil. I avoided making this bread because I thought it would be challenging. In fact, it is one of the easier breads to make, it just takes a while to develop the delicious flavor. But each step is quite simple and happily, not very messy. No kneading involved–the mixer does all the work. If you don’t have a mixer, you’ll develop some gorgeous arm muscles beating this dough.
Here are the steps:
- Beat together flour, water, and yeast for 5 minutes. Let rest 4 hours. I used a flat beater with my KitchenAid mixer and it worked perfectly.
- Add remaining flour, water, salt, and olive oil, beat five minutes. Let rest 2 hours.
- Divide in half, shape into loaves. Let rest 1 hour.
- Divide again so that you have 4 loaves (or not–I left mine in two loaves and it was fine)–let rest for 1 hour.
- Bake 25-30 minutes.
See! Nothing to it.
This ciabatta a wonderful dough for pizza or garlic bread, or add olives and rosemary (as in the photo above) for a tasty treat served with a nice cheddar, and it is adapted from Paul Hollywood’s 100 Great Breads, but as usual, I switched it up.
Other breads you might like:
Ciabatta
Equipment
- KitchenAid mixer with flat beater attachment
Ingredients
- 4 cups white flour Use bread flour if you have it. This recipe was made with plain white flour
- 1½ cups water
- 20 grams instant yeast
- 2 teaspoons salt
- 2 tablespoons olive oil
Instructions
- Combine 2 cups of the flour, 3/4 cups of the water, and the yeast. Beat for 5 minutes with a flat beater, then cover loosely with plastic wrap and let rest for 4 hours.
- Add the remaining 2 cups of flour, another 3/4 cups of water, salt, and the olive oil. Beat for another 5 minutes with flat beater. It should be a soft, slightly wet dough. Cover again with plastic wrap. Let rest 2 hours.
- Divide dough in half and use hands dipped in flour to shape into two 8-inch loaves. Place on parchment-lined baking sheet. Let rise an hour.
- Divide each loaf in two (4 loaves total), and stretch back into 8-inch loaves. Dust with flour. Let rest 1 hour.
- Preheat oven to 400° F. Bake loaves for 25-30 minutes. It will be slightly golden brown.Cool on wire rack.
