Hi, Awesome bread. Which version is shown in your photo? Semolina or not? Thanks.                                                                                             weavershouse

damn - that's some of the prettiest darn bread I've seen in a long while!

Looks like this dough would make great pizza.  When you have the dough up in the air to stretch and fold it prior to baking, stretch it into a rough  pizza shape, put it onto parchment, slap on the toppings and go. I use my ciabatta recipe for pizza all the time and it is terrific. You might want to crank up the oven as high as it will go for pizza though.

Paul Kobulnicky

Baking in Ohio

The crumb was Magnificent! Mine didn't get nearly as brown as yours. Any ideas regarding that? I must admit I've never worked with such gloppy wet dough but now I "get it" and it really does make the crumb we're all looking for in this type of bread. Have you tried adapting this recipe to sour dough?

Trish in Omaha

The problem with my ciabatta is that the crust is too thick and hard (forget chewy, mine is a real challenge on the jaws).  Could you please tell me if and how (in detail please) you steam? 

Thanks.

Wow, I see someone made a wonderful, airy ciabatta with white spelt flour. I'll have to try that when my mom comes to visit.

Hi there--from a new member of the Fresh Loaf!  I'll post an introduction on the appropriate board, but I had to first post my reaction to this formula.  It's amazing!  I just took my first batch out of the oven this afternoon.  Beautiful browned loaves, my first try at ciabatta.  I used KAF bread flour, kosher salt and SAF instant yeast.  I mixed it with my Kitchen Aid for 20 minutes after the 10-minute rest, which was enough to achieve the climbing dough as described.  I placed the dough in a Rubbermaid canister and measured it along the side so I could be sure it tripled, which was going to be a final rise height of 6" in my container.  I set a timer for 2.5 hours and was shocked to see it had gotten to 7 " in an hour and a half!  That was just at normal room temp in my kitchen (this is the South, but still, we have the AC on).

I baked the loaves, on parchment and on my stone, in two batches at 500 in my regular old electric oven.  I did use a steam pan and three consecutive sprays from a mister as PR advocates in the BBA.  It took 20 minutes to get the nice, reddish-brown color that I was looking for.  And, wow, is all I can say.  For a pretty short fermentation, this bread delivers fantastic flavor.  And the crumb is so moist!

This was my first time working with such a slack dough (with the exception of Pain a l'Ancienne).  I'm no whiz at math, but am I correct in figuring that this formula is at 95% hydration?  The huge holes in the crumb are unbelievable.  And LilDice is right--the oven spring is nothing short of an athletic feat.

I'm glad I found this board, and hope to meet new friends AND find new bread-baking frontiers. =)

Once again I have to say I love this bread. Now I've made it twice--the first three loaves got eaten so fast (one went to a neighbor) and I still wanted more! But now I have two loaves in the freezer for future enjoyment.

Here's the first loaf I cut into:

And here's my second batch, first loaf:

The second batch had way more oven spring, though I did nothing differently (except realize I didn't have to flour the dough as heavily as I did on the second rise the first time). Bread is so funny that way--consistency is hard to achieve. Or it is for me, at least.

Here's one more shot of these pretty (albeit oddly shaped) loaves.

This will be a new staple bread in my house!

without an electric mixer?

I don't have one that can handle dough and since finding the stretch and fold method, I actually put the need for one on the low priority list.

Can I just stir briskly for about 3 minutes, then rest it for about 15-30 minutes then come back and stir again for about 3 minutes? Doing this for about 4 stirs and get the same type of gluten development, do you think?

Have you ever tried making this by hand? I have an awesome spatula that is my favorite over the years that is a one piece huge job that's extra sturdy and can withstand the elasticity of wet dough.

Thanks!

I can't vouch for it myself, but you could try making it in a food processor, if you have one.  I know PR says in the BBA that you can make his ciabatta formula in the food processor.  I actually am supposed to try that sometime for a friend of mine, who has a food processor but not a mixer.  When I do, I'll post my results here.

Made this as soon as I read the recipe and it was great!!.  I did not have a chance to take any pics as I ate it too fast it was gone before I could get my camera out.  This was the moast bubbly cibatta I have ever made.  The crumb was very soft and the crust was alot softer than I expected.  The only problem I had was shaping as this was a very wet dough.  I highly doubt that this dough could be made by hand as it took me almost 25 minutes in my KA to develop the gluten enough to make this a workable dough.

What flour are you using, I've found Semolina + King Arthur Bread flour takes only about 10 minutes to come together, and I've had just straight up King Arhur come together in as little as 5 minutes

Brought up with chickens  in the back yard in my youth, I was surprised at the name of this bread. In Italian, it is the sound made by a rooster!!!  I need to make this recipe.  Talk about my roots.  OMG way to old!

Well I did it! I made this bread by hand and it was very easy! Here's the link to my blog with pictures. Feel free to make comments there. I just didn't want to take over lildice's thread with it!

http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/3088/bluezebras-baking-banter#comment-14086

I made this by hand today!!  I followed the instructions exactly, except I mixed with a wooden spoon for two minutes at a time and then let the dough rest for 10 minutes.  It only took me five cycles of this to get the dough to stick together enough.  I literally beat the crap out of it during those two minute segments!  I then let it rise for 2 1/2 hours in my electric oven (with the light on.)  It rose a little more than triple though!

This is an awesome tasting bread!  Will definately make it again!

Thanks, JoAnn

By the way, I made a proper pizza recipe out of this dough (half batch). I posted it in the pizza forum and here:

http://hollosyt.googlepages.com/quickrusticciabattapizza 

this recipe is TASTY but i couldn't get my crumb the same. the bread was very tight. i was hoping for the airy ciabatta....i'll try again today and let it rise for a longer period. i wonder if i handled it too much just prior to baking. hmmmm.
well, cheers all!

so how much flour is 500 grams? 500 grams is just over two cups

I have a new hand mixer with a cookie ...dough hook, think I will try that.... with the  rest sessions.....this bread should be lighter  than cookkie dough

http://www.jsward.com/cooking/conversion.shtml

  Well I did not see your post until too late, oh my.

I used what I thought was the correct amount of flour, about 2 1/2 cups, beat it with the cookie dough hooks, which really did develop the flour well, but it was not enough flour, and ran like pancake dough all over everything, what a mess, trying to hold it on the flour with my scraper. excited dogs ....

So I beat in another cup of flour, did a few folds and told it to be ready for the overn in 40 minutes,  The loaf reminded me of the  first one in NO Knead to Knead, which came out some years back and had some nice wet dough rescipes.

Well we ate it and it was great with fresh garden tomates and a little salt and olive oil

bake on !

Hi all --

I've had this recipe on my to-try list for a long time, and finally got around to it! I made it exactly as stated (the regular, not the semolina version), and the first thing I should note is that while I beat it in the KA for the full 30 minutes, it never pulled away from the sides / bottom of the bowl, and never climbed the paddle -- it stayed too wet for that. So next time I might try just a little less flour...

As a result, there was no way to "cut" the dough into three pieces after it had tripled (more like 2-and-a-halfed, until it collapsed)... So I decided to make one huge loaf instead... And huge it was -- almost the size of a half sheet pan.

The results? Very tasty and I thought the texture was pefect -- just the right spongy ciabattaness. HOWEVER, it had almost no oven spring for me, so it stayed very very flat -- the whole loaf is maybe only 2 inches high. Sigh. Oh well, guess I will just have to try again, perhaps this time with a smidge more flour... Here are a few pics...

Any suggestions are very much appreciated!

Emily (excited to be making my first post!)

Ok, it's obvious why it didn't rise. You didn't develop enough gluten for air to be trapped in the dough.

 If I had to guess why your's never came together it's probably because you didn't mix it fast enough. I start out on my KA with the PADDLE at 6 -- this is pretty fast, once it starts to crawl up the paddle I switch to the hook until it lifts up off the bottom of the bowl. It takes about 15 minutes typically. You were probably mixing waaay too slow.

Hi LilDice --

Thanks for your reply. I had never considered the idea that it would be under-kneaded, since it was going for so long... I didn't have it going super slow -- I think a 3 or 4 on my KA -- but 6 would certainly be much faster, so I will try that soon and let you know how it goes!

Thanks again,

Emily  

Has anyone tried this in another mixer, such as a DLX or a Bosch Universal? Everytime I come to this site I look at this particular thread and really want to try my hand at this but wanted to ask if anyone had used either of these mixers and what procedure they used with them to get the same result. I think this would make a grand grilled sandwich..............I can almost taste it just looking at these pictures. The weather here in the deep south so I am looking forward to being able to resume my bread baking trials.............no central air in this house so not much gets baked when the temps are well over 90 and the humidity is well over that!

I thought ciabatta meant slipper , because of its shape...

I agree with slipper for the meaning of ciabatta, as does my Italian dictionary.

 Anyway has anyone come up with a flour/ water ratio that isn't so wet?  If so did it effect the crumb?

Thank you, for this great recipe. It is such great bread and so easy. thank you again. we are eating your bread in Glasgow!

For those of us not fortunate enough to be using a scale yet , what is the teaspoon equivelent for 15 g of salt and is that Kosher or table style salt?

This is my first attempt with this recipe. How did I do?

Hi jeffteel,

I like your bread best.
It's because there is a little crumb left inside the bread and not all bubbles and crust.

Think of some nicely roast meat with some lovely sauce - you will be happy about some crumb.

For fun I once made a wheat bread out of a very wet dough by stretching and folding many times - I had ONE big bubble with some crust around.
Interesting to look at, but not really nice to eat.

Harry

---------------------------------------
Everyone is a stranger somewhere -
so don´t give narrowmindedness or
intolerance no chance nowhere.

After twenty-five years of baking with traditional style artisan loaves, rolls, pizzas, etc., I decided that this post gave me the courage to try a really slack dough. The resultant bread was delicious, but didn't look anything like the internal crumb structure everyone else is achieving.

I tried making a ciabatta type bread (although not in shape) according to the instructions above, although I did change the formula slightly. Was the following result because of the formula changes or something else.

I used one cup of cold butter milk and one cup of room temp water, one half cup of wheat sourdough poolish, two and a half cups of bread flour, two teaspoons of Kosher salt and two and a quarter teaspoons of proofed yeast. I kneaded with a Kitchen Aid on speed five and six for thirty minutes using both the paddle and then the hook. It never really came together away from the sides of the bowl like a traditional dough does so I dumped it on the bench and  continued folding and stretching until it would hold together, which only took about six folds. The initial rise was for approximately one and a half hours which tripled the volume, the second was for one  hour which doubled the size. The dough was very slack and I needed a bench scraper to help in the folding and shaping but it did hold together enough to hold its shape. The dough was stretched and folded after each rise prior to the final shaping. I made one boule and one banneton.

The loaves were baked in a 450F oven, misted every thirty seconds for a total of four times during the first two minutes and a pan of boiling water was placed in the oven on the stone for the first five minutes. The loaves were pulled from the oven after the internal temp reached 205F which took ten minutes for the banneton and fifteen for the boule. 

The loaves rose in the oven beautifully as expected, the loaves looked beautiful when removed from the oven as expected, taste was an absolutely delicious soft buttery creamy mouth feel  as expected, the crust was softer than a regular ciabatta as expected due to the milk,  but there was not a single large hole in the crumb which was not expected. From the external appeareances both prior and post baking and the slackness of the dough, I was expecting large holes, however, upon cutting open it looked like a sandwich loaf. It was delicious but not what I was expecting.

Could the buttermilk be responsible for the change in crumb?

Hi docpat,

there is at least one thing that makes the success of your baking unlikely.

You wrote: "I kneaded with a Kitchen Aid on speed five and six for thirty minutes"
That is where you killed the gluten structure.
Much too long and to fast. 8-10 minutes with low speed would have done.
And if the dough didn't come away from the sides of the bowl, you made something wrong before.

Harry

---------------------------------------
Everyone is a stranger somewhere -
so don´t give narrowmindedness or
intolerance no chance nowhere.

Thank you for your reply harrygermany, and I totally agree with you. In fact I read and re-read the formula prior to baking when I read that the recommended speed and time were so high. I normally mix at speed two for three minutes and then speed three for three minutes which allows me the approximately 900 total revolutions suggested by Hamelman in “Bread” with wonderful results. Today’s bread, although not holey, came out absolutely delicious and was completely devoured before and during dinner tonight by some friends that come over.

Maybe I misunderstood LilDice’s formula to “Beat the Hell out of it” and “in ten to thirty minutes it will set up”. Perhaps LilDice meant to rest it for 10 to 30 minutes after the initial mix, although I read that kjknits also kneaded it “for twenty minutes on speed 6”, JIP kneaded in a Kitchen Aid “for almost twenty five” and fearlessemily had the same understanding and results that I did? In fact on September 17 post, LilDice tells fearlessemily that the reason was that she didn’t mix fast enough. LilDice? Are you out there?

dopcat,

For good ciabatta, the dough must be really wet.  If you were able to handle it on the counter after you removed it from the mixer, it wasn't wet enough.  While the dough is mixing (I use speed 4 with the paddle attachment) it should look like pancake batter for the first 10 minutes or so.  All of a sudden, the long strands of gluten will pull the dough together.  It will totally change texture on you.  It will look almost like white "silly putty."

This, coupled with a longer rise and very gentle handling, is what gives you the large holes.

This is just my experience.  I learned to make ciabatta from the Rose Levy Beranbaum Book Bible, and this is what she says to do.

Jeff 

I made this today, it turned-out great, thanks for the great recipe...I put the loaves on parchment paper, as suggested, it made the unruly dough easier to work with...I'm wondering if parchment paper gives off bad fumes, while baking...anyone know? Thanks, Beth

I simply cannot see myself wrestling another wet loaf onto a stone, only to watch it not rise because, well...I had to wrestle it.  There is absolutely nothing in parchent paper that can give off fumes.  Although, may depend on brand.  I use Reynold's.

I have GOT to make this bread...NOW! 

_________________________________________________________________ 

Vex not the dragons for you are crunchy and taste good with ketchup...

Tried this today with some wonderful results. Used 150g of whole wheat flour instead of semolina for a nuttier flavor and it came out wonderfully. Good crumb, great crust - rise occurred in the oven when I didn't expect it to.

I just made a $5 loaf of bread!!!...actually, 3 loaves.  What a great recipe, fabulous flavor and texture.  Sorry to my local bakery, I won't be spending my $5 there anymore...I can do it in my own kitchen!  Woo Hoo!

Easy and forgiving dough.  They slid very nicely off a well-floured cooking sheet onto my heated baking stone.  However, as I was sliding my 2nd loaf onto the baking stone, I got a bit of a "hitch in my stride" and the shaped loaf ended up on the stone as a lump.  Never fear, it came out nicely baked and looking, for all the world,  as if I had intended to shape it that way!  Hey, after all, this is artisan baking!

Love this bread with butter. I'll try John's formula for a wetter dough tomorrow. Baked the loaves for 20 minutes - probably should have left them in the oven for a little longer.

Thanks for posting this recipe!

Nice looking loaves! Yes, it is a great and fast recipe. I like it because you can make it in a day. Sort of a "quckie" bread. I've also added my sourdough discard to the mix and have had nice results.

Wow , a fantastic bread! thanks!

I'm a long time lurker, first time poster.  This is such a great recipe that I had to comment.  I've made this 2 weekends in a row and my family and friends devour it.  I'm making it at 90% hydration.  I'm also holding the salt out until after the 10 minute rest to give the yeast a head start.  Fantastic, predictable results.

I think I followed the steps to the letter.  I found it very odd that the dough crawled up the hook in like 10 seconds...not 10 min.  It's been 3.5 hours and it has not tripled in size.  Something does not seem right.  In doing the conversion of 500g of flour that came to 4.5 cups which someone confirmed in a post.  475g of water is 2 cups.  It just did not seem wet at all.  Got sticky right away and my KA mixer was bogging down after  I let it set then beat it.

 Any help? 

As expected, the bread was dense.  It just did not rise like it should have and it was not "wet."  Having said that, it looked much like many of the pictures posted but without the nice big air holes.  Tasted very good as well.  This was my first try.  My thinking is that there was either not enough water or too much flour but I followed the directions. 

Glad it turned out, Tommy. Your measurements might have been off since you didn't scale the ingredients.  It makes a difference:

I measured out two cups of water using a liquid measuring container and placed the water in a container on my scale.  Came to 467g.

I then used a cup intended for dry ingredients, filled it with water twice, and measured the weight:  417g.

A cup of unbleached bread flour weighs 4.5 ounces, or 127.58 grams (per the calculator)

You noted you used 4.5 cups of flour.  127.58 times 4.5 equals 574.11g.

Flour is especially problematic when using a measuring cup because your cup of flour could weigh much more than mine, depending on how each of us fills that cup with flour.

Perhaps you have a birthday coming soon?  A scale would be a wonderful gift!

Not knowing what type of measuring cups you used, or how you loaded your flour into the cup, Tommy, it's hard to say whether you had too much flour or too little water.  Am guessing the answer is both, since you said the dough was not wet.  I've made this ciabatta many times and it is like pancake batter at the start of the mix.

The gram measurement was listed because using weight instead of volume is accurate. The only way you can be certain you have 500 grams of flour and 475 grams of water is to weigh it.  

The first bread book I purchased didn't use volume measurements, so I had to buy a scale if I wanted to bake any of the breads.  I discovered that aside from the accuracy, weighing the ingredients is faster and I never wind up with spilled flour on the counter.  

You can get a good scale with a tare function that measures in ounces, grams, or pounds for less than $30. 

Thanks again for helping.  I must tell you that I am not a bread baker.  I just happen to have a sandwich from an Italian deli last week and they had these awesome Ciabatta rolls...got me thinking.

 Anyway, second batch was much better in that the mix was like pancake batter and took about 30 to come off the sides of the mixer.  Without a scale I altered the flour and noted it.  All went pretty well after that until the stretch and shape part.  Wow, that's not easy.  Also, it seemed like the loafs I stretched did not rise at all while the 2 that I just flipped and baked did. 

 The pictures I see in this blog seem to vary in how much rise there is.  Some look like it's an inch or 2 (like mine) while others look nice and tall (like maybe 3 or 4"). Any trick to getting it to rise like a nice loaf of regular Italian bread?

Thanks,

Tom 

I made the first variation yesterday afternoon.  I used KAF bread flour, RedStar instant yeast, and kosher salt.  After the ten minute rest, It took about 20-25 minutes with the hook in the Kitchen Aid to get release from the side of the bowl. I put the dough in a tall plastic pitcher and came back a little under 2.5 hours later to find a huge mass of dough that filled the container. I sliced and proofed the dough, heat the oven, and cooked on a parchment-lined baking sheet for about 16 minutes. The loaves browned nice and tasted great. I kept some of the dough and brought it to the pizza place I work at (I'm 18...) so had access to a real oven and it made an amazing pie.

Also, as per other comments posted, if you were to make a preferment with this, would you need to make any other adjustments with the rising time or anything? I've only recently gotten really into bread so anything is appreciated. Thanks.

-Kevin

Hey Kevin,

Peter Reinhart has a pre-ferment recipe in his book "bread bakers apprentice."  It starts with a "poolish", which is nothing more than a wet-mixed dough.  You make the poolish the day before you want to bake.  Here's a thumb-nail sketch:

Poolish

1. 2.5 cups flour
2. 1.5 cups water
3. 1/4 tsp yeast

Mix together and let rise overnight in fridge.

Dough

1. All the poolish
2. 3 cups flour
3. 1 3/4 tsp salt
4. 1.5 tsp instant yeast
5. 6 tbs up to 3/4 cup flour

You can use this recipe with the instructions above.  I actually am in the proofing stage right now for some Cibatta following this recipe, so I'll post some pics and comments once it's done.

Hope that helps!

I made this bread today.  It was easier, faster and MUCH better than than the other ciabatta recipe I've tried (Shirley Corriher's).

I'd give the crust, appearance and flavor 5 out of 5.

The crumb was only 3 out of 5 for me, I'm not sure why I didn't get as many beautiful bubbles as everyone else.  I mixed for 30 min on highest speed on my DLX with the roller.  It never crawled, it just started to pull away from the the center of the bowl after 25 minutes.  I figured the gluten was developed since I could stretch an 18" long strand from the bowl.  Did I overdo it?  It tripled in about 2 hours.  My kitchen is on the chilly side and I noticed the final proof on the counter really didn't do much.

This recipe is incredibly gratifying for a novice baker.

eta - I weighed my ingredients

They're in the oven now and are looking good. I was a bit unclear on one thing:

When you say to cut the dough into pieces and let it rise, I now realize that I should be cutting it into a long rectangular shape, correct? Otherwise, after I let it rise for 45 minutes, shaping will knock out a lot of the rise that I've achieved...

hi, is there a good way to incorporate roasted garlic cloves into this? anything special i need to do? also, is it a total MUST to weigh the ingred. or can i just measure a la Betty Crocker? i'm still pretty new at bread baking and a scale is not an option right now. thanks for any help!

chrisinweare - I don't think you need to cut it into long rectangles because you will stretch the dough into the oblong when you shape it.  

norsearcher - I think roasted garlic might work really well - the bread doesn't bake for so long that it would burn the garlic.  Other than that, I'm not sure, it seems like whole cloves of garlic might just sink down since the dough is so slack???  Just try it!  :-)

I didn't quite get the air bubbles I was looking for.. I think I put in too much flower. However, the taste of the bread was delish. My husband ate almost the whole batch and made me promise to make it again. Thank you!

I make this bread a lot at home. Last night we tried it at my daughter's house, where there's no mixer and no scale. We mixed it up until the dough looked right then beat it in the bowl for while. Then we put it out on a clean counter and used the French slap and fold kneading method for a long time. The dough really came together! We then put it in an oiled bowl and turned it over and followed the directions for kneading.

It came out great, and we all had a great time doing the slap and fold kneading. We scraped the dough off the low cabinets when we were finished...

I do have one question. I used Giusto's flour, which I had read about on this site, and we were at sea level. I usually bake with KAF and at 7000 ft. I think I didn't let it rise quite enough because I didn't get the huge holes I usually do. But wonder about the lack of crispness in the crust. I steamed (something I normally don't do), but I was baking on a cookie sheet, so I thought I was compensating. Anyone have any ideas?

Thanks!

A decent looking ciabatta that can be made in several hours?  I will be trying this tomorrow.  I love gloopy doughs!LOL

Thanks for the formula and fantastic pics.

Darren

I've finally learned how to post a picture to this site...........a really big accomplishment for me! Here is my typical result with this recipe. I mix it in a DLX, it takes longer than it would in a KitchenAid but comes out fine. We love this bread for grilled sandwiches, some Rosemary Ham, cheese, roasted tomatoes, a little olive oil then on the grill a few minutes.........mmmmmmm

I looked back at the recipe and the reason it didn't turn out is I tried the semolina and he has a range for the water. I used the upper amount. Even after 30 min it was still like watery paste. So for the 1st try of the formula I would not try the 2nd version and would not use the higher water amount.

Mattie yours looks wonderful !! c

I wondered...glad to hear it probably waasn't me !! I think it is the absorption rate of the semolina vs flour. THANK YOU c

I'm not a precise person when measuring.  But I have made this a dozen times and it always turns out great.  If it is too wet to come together... add a tablespoon at a time of bread flour as it beats on the Kitchen Aid at 4.  As the dough climbs up...I go up to 6.  You have to hold the mixer steady as it really rocks.  But after 20-minutes you have a really sticky blob of dough.  Perfect.  If it starts to settle back off the hook...add another spoonful of bread flour.

I start with two cups of warm water.  Add two teaspoons of yeast.  One teaspoon of salt.  About two and a half cups of bread flour.  Stir it up and let it sit for 10-minutes.  Then start the high speed mixing...after 10-minutes I start adding the extra small amounts of flour till I get the wet window-pane texture I want.  OUt of the mixer and into a bowl I oil it with spray olive oil. To get it to rise...I microwave a cup of water to boiling in the microwave (of course).  Then put the dough into this hot moist sealed oven for an hour to 90-minutes.  After that you just do some folds with the punched down dough...let it rest...cut into loaves...and bake.  This is almost foolproof.

I'm a new young baker, and after becoming increasingly frustrated with my failed boule attempts, I figured I'd go after a more 'low-slung' bread (one that won't piss me off when it doesn't come out a big beautiful TALL loaf!)... I always love the ciabatta rolls my mom always buys from Costco, so I thought I'd take a stab.

I did my first attempt totally by the books, using the semolina variation. Came out AWESOME -- after tripling the dough, I had to throw it in the fridge overnight, and I'm not sure if that overnight slow fermentation/retarding did something special (I'm sure it did) but the ciabatta had a DELICIOUS yeasty flavor, a little sour (close to a sourdough!).

Baked again this morning (another overnight fermentation in the fridge), but this time I made the following modification-

-semolina version (everything else the same)

-280g bread flour

-70g whole wheat flour

More great results! Slightly smaller holes on the loaves pictured (I didn't do that final 'flip them over' step, I put them on parchment to proof and found it way too hard to pull them off. Two other loaves I havent cut into yet, I DID flip, and I was surprised at how much they DID puff back up despite being abused, and they also have some ears!) but just as delicious!

was i the inly only one? i mixed the dough for at least a half hour, the dough was so watery and sticky it couldnt even work with it, i had to add at least another 2 cups of flour to make the bread workable, my loaf turned out pretty bad, im not sure what i did wrong. any help??

I made a batch of this bread and the 4 loaves were inhaled so fast that I made a second batch the very same night. At the end of 6 days I had baked 5 batches, and everyone who has gotten some has raved about it. 

I found that adding a cup of 100% hydration sourdough starter added a nice bit of depth and complexity to flavor and used up my daily sourdough discard.

I wrote about it more extensively with lots more pictures on my blog

http://raccoonandlobster.com/2009/06/23/you-guys-have-got-to-try-this/ http://raccoonandlobster.com/2009/06/29/variations-on-a-theme/

Thank you Jason and LilDice!

Bigjoe13,this is a deliberately high hydration dough that is almost like handling a blob of sticky bubbles. It is mixed so long that every particle of flour is coated with water and gives off its wonderful sticky starch. As it rises, it becomes a moist,marshmallowy blob that is best handled as little as possible and with the assist of a dough knife.It is not like the usual dough that is kneaded and folded by hand and has a velvety,smooth feel.

So,try again and resist the temptation to add more flour than is called for. It should be a glossy,sticky dough that needs to be handled like a mass of soap bubbles-very lightly,with wet hands and as little as possible.

Have fun!

I tried the Cocodrillo Ciabatta today. I made half of the batch with some whole wheat flour, the other part I made with semolina.

What to say - a sticky thing! Incredible soft . . . There's a lot left to improve. I couldn't withstand to try some of the bread freshly out of the oven, that's why there's only one semolina loaf.  (to the left.)

It was very tasty while still warm, but I can't say anything about the ciabatta when cooled down. I don't expect huge surprises because it's a straight dough.

I've written more about it on my blog:oventv.wordpress.com (And I posted some more pictures there, too. No crumb shots yet though, the first loaf got eaten by my family and me to fast)

Salome

Here they are, two shots of the Coccodrillo Ciabatta with whole-wheat instead of Semolina:

I made a delicious lunch-sandwich with it, I stuffed it with smoked salmon, some cream cheese which I mixed with horseraddish, and some crunchy lettuce leaves. So soft and light. I'm very satisfied with the crumb. YUM!

Salome

Ive had success so far with the first half of the recipe, but my 90 degree summer kitchen is causing the bread to rise ultra fast, hopefully this does not diminish the flavor of the bread!

I mixed it for about 25 minutes on a speed of 6 as well. My only modification of the original recipe was using a little bit of extra water and adding maybe 30grams of wheat germ.

I've made this twice now and just love it!  So much easier than using a biga---just a tad less flavorful...most people would never notice.  The flavor and texture always comes out just right. I've found I can almost "pour" the dough out for proofing right into the desired shapes.  I let it proof right on my dusted silestone island and carefully scoop it up with my dough scraper when it's time to put it on parchment.  It's a tricky thing to do, but practice makes perfect! 

This recipe is very easy to make, had family over for the weekend the kids 'LOVED' checking on it while  rising in a food grade bucket. Unfortunatelly, it was too wet for me to flip over.  Gorgeous color but bottoms were a bit pale. Not giving up on it though, will try again, thanks so much for posting Amori.

What a great recipe.  I've been wanting to try ciabatta, and this was a great success.  I'd print a picture, but it looks like everyone else's. 

On a side note, I sliced it about 4 inches wide, then down the center (top separated from bottom) and made grilled cheese sandwiches for our tomato soup.  The kids were a little skeptical until I mentioned that it was Crocodile Bread.  They pouted that we had eaten it all up.

My own recent adventure with this bread,

http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/13519/mission-ciabatta

There are some tips on handling this extremely wet dough as well.

I read a hint a while back and it really works. Spray your paddle or dough hook with

oil and the dough will not climb.

I'd given up on succeeding with another recipe but you have renewed my hope that I will finally be able to make a ciabatta loaf. A great effort. M

I was a little bit worried when the dough didn't set up after the first half hour, but amazingly, I let it mix just a bit longer and it set up like magic.

I am another positive testimonial for this recipe.  It had everyone in the house raving.

I'was able to successfully make this recipe a few weeks ago, but this time - I was waiting for it "to triple" as emphasized in the directions.  It was getting close but was still about 25% away from triple when it collapsed in the container.

I"m not sure what to do with it now.  I stirred it down and thought about putting some refreshed starter in it tomorrow because it's getting late today.

any suggestions on what went wrong?  It must have taken all of the 30 minutes in the kitchenaid to develop and start to climb the paddle.  actually it was almost 45 minutes.  There were lots of gluten strands when I put it in the oiled container even though it had not 'cleaned' the sides and bottom of the KA.  It had, for the most part, but not like it had on my last batch.

I used high gluten bread flour and followed the directions to the letter.  It's not overly warm in the house.  I did turn on the oven when the dough got close to the 'tripled' size, but that shouldn't have affected it.

Help?

-susie

Made this bread twice, beating the hell out of it and it came out beautifully both times. My old KA held up! Thanks for the hints.

Don't have the proper equiment so I tried to convert from grams to cups and every site had a slightly different amounts.

  Anyone please  Does 500 gr equal 4 c or 4 1/2 c?

Help!

so I see all the different measurements  as I also saw, best to get that scale. I did use 4 c last time I made it and it came out very well.

So thanks to all!