BBA #6: Ciabatta, Biga Version

For this week's Peter Reinhart Bread Baker's Apprentice Challenge, we made Ciabatta. Reinhart has two versions, one that uses a French poolish starter, and one that uses an Italian biga starter. I decided to go with the biga version after reading online that its higher hydration percentage makes for a looser crumb.

The biga begins with flour, yeast and water, kneaded lightly and let to rise overnight. Then the next day more flour, yeast, salt, and water(or whole milk or buttermilk, and I subbed buttermilk) is added, and the serious kneading begins. This is a very wet, sticky, messy dough, so I called in my mom for backup but she needed a little boost to reach my countertops:)

Once the dough reaches the tacky but not sticky stage, you stretch it out, and then fold it over itself, let it rest for 30 minutes, and repeat. I found this video on YouTube about stretching and folding. The dough is then divided and set up in a couche to proof. I am couche-less, so I used parchment paper, and scooched them up against each other. The dough is pulled one last time before baking, then put in the oven for about 15-20 minutes total, until it reaches an internal temp of 205. The hardest part is waiting an hour for everything to cool, as usual.

My final product was pretty, pretty, pretty good (channeling Larry David). The taste was great, very flavorful, and I liked the openish crumb pattern. My loaves were a little softer than I'm familiar with ciabatta being, I think because I used buttermilk instead of water. It was a good deal of work though, and we ate one whole loaf for breakfast, and another the next day for dinner, so next time I think I'll double or 1 1/2 the recipe to make it completely worth all the trouble.