Nothing beats the smell of fresh bread baking in the house. This surprisingly simple sourdough ciabatta bread recipe makes a deliciously crusty loaf on the outside and a soft and tasty inside. Yes, please!
First, mix the dry ingredients together–flour, yeast, and salt. Weighing your flour will give you a much more consistent result. How tightly packed your flour is can really change the actual amount that you are using in a recipe.
Next, add the water and the sour dough starter. Again, weighing these ingredients will give you a much more consistent result.
Knead the dough for 10 minutes. Scrape the sides and bottom of the bowl a couple of times to make sure all the flour gets incorporated.
The dough will be very soft and sticky. Store overnight in the refrigerator in an air tight container. The next day, remove the dough from the refrigerator and let it rise on the countertop for at least 4 hours.
When you are ready to cook, sprinkle your countertop with a thick mixture of corn meal and flour, about a 2 to 1 ratio. Divide your dough in half, pulling it into a long baguette loaf, and coat it with the corn meal mixture. Spray a baguette loaf pan with non-stick spray and put your dough in the pan. Allow it to rise and proof for another 60-90 min.
Now the fun part—baking. You need a HOT oven (450 degrees). Unless you are lucky enough to have a steam oven, you’ll also need a spray bottle. Spray the back of the oven with the spray bottle to get some steam going in the oven just before you put the dough in. Continue to spray the back of the oven every 5 minutes or so while the bread bakes. This will give you that hard crusty bread on the outside. The bread should bake for 25-30 minutes.
Allow the bread to cool for a minute and enjoy!
Serving ideas: You can dip it olive oil and vinegar. You could also try toasting the bread and serving it with homemade ricotta cheese and berries.
Sourdough Ciabatta Bread
From the Kitchen of Lynnae Hymas
| Makes: 2 loaves | Prep Time: 60 min active; 16-20 hours total | Cook Time: 25-30 min |
INGREDIENTS:
- 21 ounces or 3 ¾ cups bread flour
- 1 ¼ teaspoons yeast
- 1 ½ teaspoons salt
- 10 ounces sourdough starter
- 13 ½ ounces water
For the outside coating:
- 1/3 cup flour
- 2/3 cup corn meal
INSTRUCTIONS:
Add the flour, salt, and yeast to the bowl of a stand mixer, and combine. Add sour dough starter and water to the bowl and mix on low speed with the dough hook for 10 min. The dough should be very soft and sticky. Refrigerate overnight in an airtight container. Set the dough out on the counter and allow to rise for 4 hours at room temperature. Spray a baguette pan with non-stick cooking spray and set aside. Combine 1/3 cup of flour and 2/3 cup corn meal in a bowl and sprinkle onto a clean countertop. Partition the dough into 2 loaves, and coat with mixture of flour and cornmeal. Let the dough rest and rise, or proof, for 60-90 minutes. Bake at 450° F for 25-30 minutes. Using a spray bottle, spray a stream of water into the back of the oven at 0, 5, and 10 minutes. This will help the bread develop its characteristic beautiful hard crust.
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