Quick And Easy Artisan Ciabatta Recipes

QUICK AND EASY ARTISAN CIABATTA

Steps:

• Cut off a 1 pound (grapefruit sized) piece of refrigerated dough without dusting the surface with flour. Wet hands will help prevent sticking. Using your wet hands, shape the dough into a ball by stretching the surface of the dough around to the bottom on all four sides, rotating the ball a quarter turn as you go. With your wet fingers, flatten the ball into an elongated oval about 1 inch thick. Don't make it thinner than 1 inch or it will puff like pita bread.
• Turn on oven to 450 degrees F with a baking stone on the middle rack. Place an empty broiler tray on any other shelf that will not interfere with the bread.
• Place the loaf on a white flour-covered pizza peel and allow to rest for 20 minutes. Dust the top of the loaf with flour but do not slash with a knife.
• Slide the loaf directly onto the hot stone. You may need the assistance of a steel dough scraper or spatula. Pour 1 cup of hot tap water onto the broiler tray and quickly close the oven door.
• Bake for about 20 minutes or until deeply brown. Allow to cool on a rack before cutting or eating.

JASON'S QUICK CIABATTA

Steps:

• In Kitchen Aid style mixer: Mix all ingredients roughly till combined with paddle, let it rest for 10 minutes.
• With the paddle (I prefer the hook to prevent the dough from crawling into the guts of the mixer), beat the living hell out of the batter, it will start out like pancake batter but in anywhere from 10 to 30 minutes it will set up and work like a very sticky dough. if it starts climbing too soon, then switch to the hook. You'll know it's done when it separates from the side of the bowl and starts to climb up your hook/paddle and just coming off the bottom of the bowl. I mean this literally about the climbing, i once didn't pay attention and it climbed up my paddle into the greasy inner workings of the mixer. It was not pretty! Anyway, it will definitely pass the windowpane test.
• Place into a well oiled container and let it triple! it must triple! For me this takes about 2.5 hours.
• Empty on to a floured counter (scrape if you must, however you gotta get the gloop out), cut into 3 or 4 pieces. Spray with oil and dust with lots o' flour. Let them proof for about 45 minutes, which gives you enough time to crank that oven up to 500°F.
• After 45 minutes or so the loaves should be puffy and wobbly, now it's iron fist, velvet glove time. Pick up and stretch into your final ciabatta shape (~10" oblong rectangle) and flip them upside down (this redistributes the bubbles, so you get even bubbles throughout), and onto parchment or a heavily floured peel. Try to do it in one motion and be gentle, it might look like you've ruined them completely, but the oven spring is immense on these things.
• Bake at 500F until they are 205F in the center (about 15-20 minutes), rotating 180 degrees half way through. Some people like to turn the oven down to 450F after 10 minutes, but whatever floats your boat. I usually bake in 2 batches.