Potato Ciabatta

This is the result of a search for an easy-to-make potato bread with a relatively light crumb.  The base recipe is John Kirkwood's ciabatta https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D9ZvlKQmm6M

Pre-ferment

• 250g white bread flour
• 250g water
• 0.5 g instant dry yeast

Mix roughly; 12 hours at room temperature; 1-3 days in fridge.

Dough

• 50g potato flour
• 50g whole wheat flour
• 100g durum flour
• 50g white bread flour
• 10g salt
• 2g diastatic malt
• 0.5 g instant dry yeast

Combine  and mix slightly to disperse the potato flour (which can make lumps on contact with water).  Then add

• 150g water

and mix until dough comes together.   Remove from the mixer, wrap airtight, let sit for a half hour or more, flatten and chop into chunks.

Then put the pre-ferment in the mixer bowl with the paddle.  Add the chunks gradually and mix until the dough is uniform.  Mix at first speed a minute, second speed a minute, third speed a couple of minutes or until the dough leaves the sides and forms a ball (just as in Kirkwood’s video ).

Bulk ferment with two or three folds until dough has some strength (as in Kirkwood) and doubles; this usually takes about three hours.

You can then shape as a couple of pillow-shaped ciabattas and follow the rest of Kirkwood’s video.  I have instead been making one loaf, proofing in a banneton, and baking in a Breadtopia oval clay baker, which produces a photogenic loaf like the one above.  I preheat oven and baker to 430F, and then turn the oven to 350 once the baker is in the oven, but ovens vary.  I do about 30 minutes in the baker, and then maybe 5-10 out of the baker for 35-40 minutes total baking time.

The crumb is very soft (maybe too soft) moist, and flavorful.  It stays soft several days and works for sandwiches.

I spent a lot of time working on recipes using real potatoes, but (a) prep time was longer (b) it was harder to achieve consistency from one bake to the next (c) the potato flour gives surprisingly good taste and texture results.  This is Bob's Red Mill.