I baked my first ciabatta today! I followed Daniel Stevens' recipe in River Cottage Handbook No. 3: Bread.
In an ideal world, I would have made this completely with my own sourdough starter, but, being short on time and not being able to give my starter the full-time attention it needs, I make do supplementing my starter with commercial yeast (Lowan's dried yeast). Indeed, Stevens' recipes are all based on commercial yeast and, for best results, he recommends adding a good "glug" of your own starter (which I do).
I omitted the oil from his recipe as I read that oil makes it less chewy: http://sourdough.com/blog/ sourdough-ciabatta.
The crust was certainly crunchy, chewy in the middle, nice big holes, great doughy texture.
Flours in my starter: started with wholemeal spelt, rye and then spelt. Gave the ciabatta a pleasant sourness.
Flours in the ciabatta: 750g Laucke baker's flour (wheat) + 250g semolina
I hope you don't mind Chirpy Ann, but I've nominated you on my list for the Sunshine Award. Check it out at:
ReplyDeletehttp://harvestbeyondmyfrontdoor.wordpress.com/2012/04/20/sunshine-sunflowers/
Looking forward to many more exciting posts,
Pen xx
Wow gee, I reckon this is tops :)
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