It seems that Britain has retreated to winter. As I type, the wind is howling, the rain is lashing the windows and I have a pile of expensive plasterboard sitting in the rain in the drive-way getting ruined. Yay mid-summer winter weather.
Destroyed building supplies aside, what this weather does for me is make me yearn for comforting starches and being curled up cozily on the sofa (preferably with a good book and a roaring fire. We haven't yet restored our fireplaces yet unfortunately, so I'm having to settle for roaring central heating). And so, of course, I need bread.
Homemade ciabatta is one of my favourites. This is proper Real Bread. It takes a bit of time as it needs to rise in the fridge overnight, but involves minimal effort (no kneading at all) and the rewards for this limited hands-on time is a bread that tastes and looks amazing. It bears the little resemblance to supermarket-bought ciabatta which are almost always fluffy and dry. This has a moist, chewy crumb with big holes, just perfect for holding pools of melted butter or olive oil. It's also perfect for steak sandwiches which I plan on making for dinner tomorrow night...if there's any bread left by then.
This is my recipe - it makes 2 huge loaves, so you could halve it. But bread freezes well, and while this isn't hard, it can be a bit messy, so I always make one mess and two loaves and have one stashed away in the freezer for the next miserable day!
Ciabatta
Ingredients
900g strong white flour
1 tsp sugar
1 1/2 tsp instant yeast
2 1/2 tsp salt
2 tbsp olive oil
700ml warm water
Place dry ingredients in a very large bowl (truly - go for the biggest you can find. It will look too big, but the dough rises a LOT). Mix together. In a jug, measure the water and add oil to it. Mix the wet ingredients into the dry. Using a strong spoon (I use a wooden one), mix everything together until it resembles a wet, sticky mess. It will look like you need another 500g flour, but under NO circumstances should you add flour. I don't knead this bread - I really just beat it as best I can with the spoon for a couple of minutes. Poke, prod, beat, mix, stir - whatever you can manage, so that everything is combined and it's had a bit of work. It really is much too sticky to try and knead and I've found it to be perfectly fine without this step, so trust me!
Cover the bowl with cling-film and leave it in the fridge overnight.
When you take it out the next day, you'll have a giant bowl of bubbly batter. It won't look much like bread dough. Don't worry!
Heavily flour your bench. Place two tea-towels on the bench and shape them into sort of baskets (see picture for what I'm talking about). Heavily dust with flour - you really need to be quite liberal here. You're going to flip the bread off the towels later, so don't skimp. Gently tip your dough/batter onto the bench and divide in two (I use a dough scraper tool for this and it's very easy). Try to avoid knocking the air out of the dough - that's the key to the holey texture, so just be gentle. I cut my dough lengthwise so that each piece is roughly rectangular shaped, but either way, shape into a rectangle/slipper shape and place on the tea towel. It should look something like this (don't worry about the funny lumps and bumps - the top will become the bottom later on. And in any case, real bread ought to be slightly odd looking!):
Leave entirely alone for 1 and a half hours. Heat oven to 240degC with a baking tray in the oven. I also put another small tray in the bottom of the oven with some water in it - to create steam (which gives a good crust on the bread). Once the dough has had its hour and a half, and the oven is hot, remove hot baking tray and very carefully flip/turn your bread onto the tray. This does take a bit of aim, so it's possible you will make a mess your first time. Bake it even if it's half hanging off the tray - it'll look weird but still taste good! Gently (and with the sharpest knife you own), cut two slashes into the dough so the steam can escape.
Bake for 15 mins at 240degC, then turn the heat down to 200degC and bake another 15 mins. Remove and cool on a wire rack until ready to eat. Then enjoy some fantastic real bread - just try to resist!
Destroyed building supplies aside, what this weather does for me is make me yearn for comforting starches and being curled up cozily on the sofa (preferably with a good book and a roaring fire. We haven't yet restored our fireplaces yet unfortunately, so I'm having to settle for roaring central heating). And so, of course, I need bread.
Homemade ciabatta is one of my favourites. This is proper Real Bread. It takes a bit of time as it needs to rise in the fridge overnight, but involves minimal effort (no kneading at all) and the rewards for this limited hands-on time is a bread that tastes and looks amazing. It bears the little resemblance to supermarket-bought ciabatta which are almost always fluffy and dry. This has a moist, chewy crumb with big holes, just perfect for holding pools of melted butter or olive oil. It's also perfect for steak sandwiches which I plan on making for dinner tomorrow night...if there's any bread left by then.
This is my recipe - it makes 2 huge loaves, so you could halve it. But bread freezes well, and while this isn't hard, it can be a bit messy, so I always make one mess and two loaves and have one stashed away in the freezer for the next miserable day!
Ciabatta
Ingredients
900g strong white flour
1 tsp sugar
1 1/2 tsp instant yeast
2 1/2 tsp salt
2 tbsp olive oil
700ml warm water
Place dry ingredients in a very large bowl (truly - go for the biggest you can find. It will look too big, but the dough rises a LOT). Mix together. In a jug, measure the water and add oil to it. Mix the wet ingredients into the dry. Using a strong spoon (I use a wooden one), mix everything together until it resembles a wet, sticky mess. It will look like you need another 500g flour, but under NO circumstances should you add flour. I don't knead this bread - I really just beat it as best I can with the spoon for a couple of minutes. Poke, prod, beat, mix, stir - whatever you can manage, so that everything is combined and it's had a bit of work. It really is much too sticky to try and knead and I've found it to be perfectly fine without this step, so trust me!
Cover the bowl with cling-film and leave it in the fridge overnight.
When you take it out the next day, you'll have a giant bowl of bubbly batter. It won't look much like bread dough. Don't worry!
 |
| The dough after 8-12 hours in the fridge |
Heavily flour your bench. Place two tea-towels on the bench and shape them into sort of baskets (see picture for what I'm talking about). Heavily dust with flour - you really need to be quite liberal here. You're going to flip the bread off the towels later, so don't skimp. Gently tip your dough/batter onto the bench and divide in two (I use a dough scraper tool for this and it's very easy). Try to avoid knocking the air out of the dough - that's the key to the holey texture, so just be gentle. I cut my dough lengthwise so that each piece is roughly rectangular shaped, but either way, shape into a rectangle/slipper shape and place on the tea towel. It should look something like this (don't worry about the funny lumps and bumps - the top will become the bottom later on. And in any case, real bread ought to be slightly odd looking!):
Leave entirely alone for 1 and a half hours. Heat oven to 240degC with a baking tray in the oven. I also put another small tray in the bottom of the oven with some water in it - to create steam (which gives a good crust on the bread). Once the dough has had its hour and a half, and the oven is hot, remove hot baking tray and very carefully flip/turn your bread onto the tray. This does take a bit of aim, so it's possible you will make a mess your first time. Bake it even if it's half hanging off the tray - it'll look weird but still taste good! Gently (and with the sharpest knife you own), cut two slashes into the dough so the steam can escape.
Bake for 15 mins at 240degC, then turn the heat down to 200degC and bake another 15 mins. Remove and cool on a wire rack until ready to eat. Then enjoy some fantastic real bread - just try to resist!
Those loaves look spectacular. I bought bread flour today and I'm going to give this a whirl tomorrow. Will let you know how my loaves turn out...
ReplyDeleteYay! Good luck - you can't really go wrong! It's quite similiar to the no-knead NY Times one I think...
ReplyDelete