Ciabatta Bread

Photo: ROKCO - Rok Jurca

Ingredients

FOR THE SPONGE

10 grams yeast. compressed

200 ml Warm Water

350 grams all purpose white flour

FOR THE DOUGH

15 grams yeast. compressed

400 ml Warm Water

60 ml milk. warm

500 grams all purpose white flour

2 teaspoons salt

50 ml olive oil

Preparation

PREPARING THE SPONGE: Measure the ingredients and take the time to do the sponge and dough by directions, otherwise you won’t get the right results! Dissolve the yeast in warm water. Add the flour in a large pot and pour in the yeast mixture. Knead the ingredients around 10 minutes until you get nice and soft dough. Leave the dough in pot and cover it tightly with cling film. Leave it to rise and rest for 15 hours on a room temperature. HINT: The pot should be very large so that the ingredients for the sponge and later for the dough could be mixed in it together.

PREPARING THE DOUGH:

After 15 hours when the sponge is ready.

Dissolve the yeast in warm water. Add the yeast mixture in to the sponge. Mix the mixture with a spoon or your hand for a minute until the ingredients start to mix together. Add milk and then use an electric mixer and start mixing the dough. Mix the dough for around 3 minutes. At this stage the dough should have a very liquid consistency.

When you finished mixing slowly start to add flour. Best way is to separate the flour in to three parts. First add the first part and mix a little (for a minute), then add the second part and mix a little (for a minute) and finally add the third part.

After you added all the flour, knead the dough with your hand or in a dough mixture for about 12 minutes. Then add the oil and salt. Knead for another 3-5 minutes. When finished, the dough will have unusually wet consistency and will stick to your hands. If you measured all the ingredients right everything will be fine.

Cover the pot tightly with cling film and set aside to rest and rise for 2 hours. The dough will raise a lot, which is why you must use a very big pot so the dough doesn’t have problems with space while rising.

Cut a big piece of baking paper, put it on a baking pan and sprinkle it with flour. Take as much dough as you need for 1 ciabatta and shape it in to a loaf. Original recipe yields 6 ciabattas.

If you have problems shaping the dough because of its consistency, fold the baking paper in to sort of canals and pour the dough in to this canals.

When the dough is shaped leave it to rest for half an hour.

Preheat the oven on 220 C (about 430 F).

Just before you put the chiabattas in the oven sprinkle them with flour. Bake for a little less than half an hour.

When baked, take them of the baking paper and leave them to cool.

NUTRITIONAL VALUES (1,4 to 1,6 PAL which corresponds to moderate activity of an office job) WOMAN Calories 30%% RDA, Protein 40%% RDA, Fats 13%% RDA, Cholesterol 0%% RDA, Carbs 41%% RDA, Sugar 2%% RDA,

MAN Calories 24%% RDA, Protein 32%% RDA, Fats 10%% RDA, Cholesterol 0%% RDA, Carbs 33%% RDA, Sugar 2%% RDA.