Tuesday, April 10, 2012

No Knead Ciabatta

Sticky dough after an hour of rest

Lately, I have an obsession for bread making. After the success of my buckwheat sourdough bread, I went on to Country bread and now Ciabatta. Putting together flour, water, yeast and salt...and time for fermentation, we produce bread. Simple yet bread has so many flavours and technique to master, I am sure this will keep me busy for awhile :)

No knead ciabatta, nice crumbs and crisp crust

Here's my Ciabatta! No knead!! because I don't have a dough mixer. All my breads are hand knead, so I snob around the Internet and Voila! No Knead Ciabatta!! how can I resist?? Easy to make, gives beautiful crumbs but get chewy after. So the next morning,  I toasted it, spread with a good layer of butter and some raspberry jam.. The saltiness of the butter pair with the sweetness of raspberry jam, accompanied with "Crunch Crunch Crunch" for each bite of the toast.. I let you imagine but I can assure you it is a  great way to start a day,
So here's what you need;

300g     White flour (Type55)
200g     Wheat flour(Type110)
375g     Water
1tsp      Instant yeast
10g       Salt (fine)

  1. In a big plastic tub (not less then 5L), stir together all the ingredient. You will get a very wet and sticky dough.
  2. Walk away for 20min, let the flour assorb all the liquid.
  3. Now stretch and  fold the dough with your hand or rubber spatula. You can stretch and fold on a well floured work surface with well oiled hands but I did mine in the tub. How? Visual the container as a clock. Plant your spatula at 3 o'clock stretch it till 12 o'clock and fold it towards you. Continue to do this while turning the container after you do the 3 o'clock to 12 o'clock(anti-clockwise), you will turn the container(clockwise) so that the 12 o'clock is now at the 3 o'clock and you will fold again towards you for 20 times. This is call 1 set of fold.
  4. Do 3 sets of stretch and fold with an interval of every 45mins.
  5. Let it ferment in the fridge for 12 to 14 hours. You should get a bubbly dough which is 3 times it's original volume. (I mixed my dough after dinner say 9pm and I bake it for lunch the next day.)
  6. The next morning, gently scrape dough onto well floured surface. Dust the top of the dough with flour and gently pat the dough into a rectangle.
  7. Divide dough into desired pieces and transfer dough on to baking pan. I use a non stick Tefal cake pan with extra flour and semolina.  Cover with a plastic and let rise for an hour.
  8. Preheat oven at 240C for at least 30 min. It has to be very hot to gives your bread that oven spring.
  9. Bake dough for 20 to 25 mins with steam ( I used a tin cup with some hot water in it) or until golden brown and sounds hollow when tapped at the bottom.
  10. Remove the bread from tin and let cool on a grill.
First batch came out a little pale (see below right) with thin crust. So the second batch (below left hand side) I took out the steam cup after baking for 20min and let it bake for another 5 min to crisp up the crust. Which I like better. It's less moist and gives more crisp to the crust.

Ciabatta for lunch

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