March 29, 2009 - 9:10pm
First attempt at Ciabatta with Poolish
Hi everyone,
I am having a blast exploring the site and I tried my first recipe today...Ciabatta with Poolish. Came out beautiful, tender and delicious. Wonderful crumb, great soft and chewy crust. Fabulous dipped in olive oil with garlic and also with butter. I can't wait to play around some more...will attempt to post pics.
~Katie
Share
Welcome to TFL katelove, and congratulations on your ciabatta! First recipe? That's great-looking ciabatta for a first-timer. You are clearly brave, jumping into a wet sticky dough and coming up with a winner. You belong here!
David
Thank you David. I feel so jazzed about baking. I used to not eat carbs, and now that I am eating them again...I am going all the way, baking my own and getting creative. I tried again with the ciabatta, this time with half whole wheat...came out pretty good, but got a little overly dark on the outside, I may have a hotter than average oven...I also just tried a honey whole wheat, this time with a biga. I actually enjoyed the wetter dough more. I like the wildness of the wet dough, more alive or something.
This is such a great site and good support for people who are learning and growing as bakers. Very cool.
~Katie
Hi Katie,
You are really going all out, which as I say makes you a natural for TFL. Half whole wheat ciabatta I have never tried, but I don't see why you couldn't make it work. The bran in the whole wheat may cut down on the expansiveness, and thus the hole structure somewhat.
I did years of biga-built whole wheat bread before I ever found TFL. Ever since I got the sourdough bug, however, the pre-ferment that is a "final levain" has substituted for the bigas of old for me.
Indeed, TFL is a great website. I learned everything I needed to know about sourdough by posting and getting feedback here.
I'm impressed that the wet dough doesn't faze you. It took me a long time before I got to love wet sticky dough, and to learn that just because my mixer couldn't make a coherent mass out of it didn't mean it wouldn't make great bread. More power to ya!
Let us see some more pix?
David
I did a 70% WW ciabatta recently with nice results. Very high hydration/wet dough based on Jason's Quick Ciabbata recipe I found here on TFL. I agree with the "alive"-ness of the wet dough. I found myself jumping into wet doughs pretty quickly to keep things interesting. I am just finally getting ready to start a sourdough starter and move in that direction (after nearly 2 painful months without an oven). Best of luck in your adventures.