Ciabatta Bread

Makes 4 loaves

Starter dough (the day before)

What you’ll need

• 2 1/4 cups bread flour
• 1 1/4 cups water
• 1/4 tsp. yeast (dry)

What to do

• In a large bowl or plastic container, combine flour and yeast, then add water.
• Mix with spoon or hands until all dry ingredients are hydrated, it should have no dry spots and be somewhere between a dough and a batter.
• Leave overnight, covered

Final dough

What you’ll need

• 5 1/8 cups bread flour
• 2 cups water
• 1 tablespoon salt
• 2 1/2 teaspoons yeast (dry)
• Starter dough

What to do

(in same container)

• put flour, salt, yeast on top of starter dough (which will now be nice and bubbly and fragrant)
• combine these dry ingredients together so salt and yeast are distributed evenly throughout flour
• add water, hottest you can get it out of the tap
• mix everything together with your hands until there is no dry flour

big sticky mess

• rest for 20 minutes covered
• knead the dough – I left mine in the container and folded it on itself over and over again
• rest for one hour, covered
• fold dough – fold each of the 4 sides into the middle and flip the whole thing over so it is smaller and tighter
• rest for one hour, covered
• cut out rough pieces (you can use a bread knife – wetting it first helps, but I just used my hands- wet-  to make pieces)
• put pieces on baking sheet with tiny amount of olive oil to prevent sticking.
• let rise for 15-20 minutes
• bake at 450 for 20-25 minutes
• check that top and bottom are evenly baking. after 10 minutes, I switched my baking sheets and moved the top sheet to the bottom and bottom sheet to the top. Watch the bottom of the breads so they don’t burn.
• Enjoy! I ate mine by making an olive oil and cracked black pepper dip.