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Sunday, February 20, 2011

BBA Challenge: Ciabatta, Poolish Version











This weeks challenge was ciabatta bread. I did the poolish version. I let it ferment overnight. I think shaping the bread was a challenge and I'm not sure I did it right. My crumb didn't turn out right, no big holes. What did turn out right though, the flavor!! As I was taking the bread out of the oven I could smell the ferment, like a beer smell.
These are the before and after poolish pictures.






The dough was pretty stiff and I was unable to kneed it in my mixer so I did alot of hand work. I'm guessing that had something to do with my tight crumb. I even added about 3 extra Tbsp. water to the recipe.





I stretched the dough out and folded it and allowed it to proof.







I divided the dough in 3 and shaped it, allowing it to proof again.











I heated the oven up to 500 and used my pizza stone and pizza peel. I have a BIG cast iron pan that I put in the oven under the stone. For my first steaming I put ice in the pan, then I sprayed the water on the sides of the oven for my other steamings. I was very pleased with my crust hardness.











Out of the oven.










I couldn't wait, I sliced it after 25 minutes. Yum! Thank you Chris from http://www.akuindeed.com for hosting our BBA challenges.










2 comments:

  1. Mine came out with more a sandwich bread appearance, but there were a couple people who had decent size hole and a good crumb. Not sure exactly what they did so differently, but I think it's simply working the dough to much when it's shaped. I am hoping to try this again and use a different method of shaping etc, just to see how much of a difference it makes.

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  2. Hey it looks great!! After my not so great challah experience I hope my ciabatta turns out this well :)

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