Cocodrillo Ciabatta

Today is Bread Baking Day! Every first of the month, an international group of bloggers bake a themed bread together.

This month was Spring Country Breads, hosted by CindyStar. Cindy asked us to be inspired by a celebration of spring, and a lovely spring picnic in the country is just what I had in mind with this Ciabatta, fondly known as Cocodrillo Ciabatta all over the internet.

I found my version on Fresh Loaf, one of my favorite bread blogs and information sources. While I don't know why it's called cocodrillo, I imagine maybe because it is uses a direct method, so you can be lazy like a crocodile and still make a delicious rustic loaf in one day with no advance planning?

Whatever the etymology might be, here is my Spring Country Breads recipe-

Cocodrillo Ciabatta
makes 4 small loaves

500 g flour

475 g water

2 t instant yeast

2 t salt

Combine flour and water to form a ball, let autolyse for 20 minutes. Add in yeast and salt, then using the paddle attachment, mix on medium speed in your electric mixer for 5 minutes, or until dough starts to crawl up the paddle. Switch to a dough hook and mix for another 10 minutes on medium.

Place in oiled glass bowl to rise. Dough needs to triple (very important)! For me, this took about 2.5 hours. If, after the first hour, dough has more than doubled, fold or punch down.

Once dough has tripled, remove to well floured counter, divide into 3-4 pieces and bulk rise for 45 minutes. Preheat oven to 500. When nicely risen into a bubbly knobby hunk, stretch and fold into a 10 inch oblong, or as close as you can come. This dough is very wet and hard to work with, but I consoled myself with imperfections are good, imperfections are rustic! Because the dough was so hard to work with, I placed it on parchment prior to placing in the oven. I didn't want to degas it too much trying to put it directly on the stone.

Bake at 500 for the first 5 minutes, opening the door every 30 seconds to spray oven walls with water. After 5 minutes, turn oven down to 450 and bake another 10-15 minutes, or until you get a good bottom thump and internal temp is 205.

I loved this recipe, it was so simple and produced a great wide open crumb. If you are so inclined to do the math, this dough has about a 95% hydration, which is the highest I've ever made. Next time I want to play around with a pre-ferment on this one to develop the flavor a little more. It was however, delicious, rustic, and perfect for a lovely spring picnic in the country!