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Sourdough Ciabatta
I love so many types of bread and so many different wheat varieties, yet if you asked me, “If you could only have one type of bread to eat for the rest of your life, what would you pick?” my answer would be, “Ciabatta.” Specifically, sourdough ciabatta, for the added complexity of flavor that natural leavening brings to the bread.
Sourdough ciabatta not only has a lovely flavor, it is an excellent vehicle for some of my favorite foods. The chewy rough crust of ciabatta can withstand the juicy tomatoes of bruschetta or dripping BBQ sauce from pulled pork. The tender and open crumb can hold massive amounts of olive oil, butter, my favorite creamy blue cheese or Nutella. Ciabatta also makes an excellent garlic bread with it’s wide surface area for spreading a garlic-olive oil-salt paste.
Here is a video that reveals the crunchy crust and fillable crumb of this sourdough ciabatta recipe.
I developed this sourdough ciabatta recipe from several sources. Wild Yeast Blog gave me ingredient ratios to work off of and the double hydration technique (adding a part of the water after hand mixing, so that while mixing you can more easily feel the gluten develop). This YouTube video showed me some ciabatta dough handling and shaping ideas. Finally, Peter Reinhart’s ciabatta recipe in The Bread Baker’s Apprentice provided additional shaping ideas as well as bake time and temperature for “slippers,” the traditional ciabatta bread shape.
Ciabatta was invented in 1982 by an Italian baker and a flour mill owner who collaborated to create a bread to compete with France’s baguette. Ciabatta was meant to remind people of old-fashioned Italian bread with it’s simple list of ingredients. The baker coined the term “ciabatta” after his wife’s slippers of the same shape. You can read more about the history of ciabatta in these articles from Wikipedia and The Guardian.
Sourdough Ciabatta
Sourdough ciabatta is perfect for bruschetta, juicy BBQ sandwiches, garlic bread, and soft cheeses. This recipe is surprisingly fast because of the large amount of active starter in the dough, and easy because of the simple shaping process.
Ingredients
Instructions
Sourdough Starter
Hand Mixing Instructions
Stand Mixer Instructions
After Mixing
Shopping List
Sourdough Ciabatta