--- title: Ciabatta adventure 1 author: Wouter type: post date: 2012-08-02T19:51:41+00:00 url: /ciabatta-adventure-1/ featured_image: /wp-content/uploads/2012/08/MG_6704.jpg tags: - pizza --- # The challenge The first recipe I’ve tried in the “BREAD” book by Jeffrey Hamelman was baguettes with poolish. It might nog have been a good idea, since the recipe calls for a **very wet dough**. There were some restrictions involved: **no mixer**! This means a lot of stretch & folding and french folding have to be involved. I’ve been asked to bake a focaccia which uses the ciabatta dough. Last time the wet dough experiments were quite a “failure” so I was a little anxious to try this one out. This is the result: [][1]
The “holey” ciabatta looks good but hurts your teeth!
Looks rather good, right? But there were some problems involved: * The crust was very crisp out of the oven but turned soft after a few hours… I’ve learned this is partially unavoidable especially with higher hydratation percentage doughs. * The bread was **very chewy** – a bit too much for my liking. I would have hoped it to be soft! I more or less followed the recipe by the book except that I also added a 100% hydratation sourdough starter together with a little bit of commercial yeast to create the poolish. That might have been “too much”, I’m not sure. I’ll have to try the same recipe without that! _Should have stayed with the book_ of course… The “chewy”-ness is an issue I’ve been trying to get right for about a month. This is the last batch of “failed” baguettes with 75% hydratation:
[][2]
Last bake’s failed baguette attempt
I used [The Weekend Bakery][3] recipe and cut everything by half – except the yeast and salt. Whoops, how stupid. It turned out to be quite overproofed – even for one hour, I can’t exactly remember the time table on this one. I do remember I threw everything away since it was way too salty! I **did use the same flour** for everything and I highly suspect this may be the nr. 1 reason why these wet doughs don’t correctly work out for me. I used white “all purpose” flour which can also be used for pastry. It’s called “molenaarsbloem” in Dutch and does not state any protein content. It’s not bread flour, nor high-gluten or “strong” flour. Another thing I think I might have did wrong was **underkneading** since I did everything by hand and it was extremely difficult. I stretch & folded every 30 minutes for 2,5 hours (might even have to bulk ferment longer next time?!). This is what I’ve been trying to replicate:
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Nice holes, crisp crust and not too chewy
On to the next bake! [1]: https://redzuurdesem.be/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/MG_6704.jpg [2]: https://redzuurdesem.be/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/2012-07-15-08.24.29.jpg [3]: http://www.weekendbakery.com/posts/our-easy-french-baguette-recipe/ [4]: https://redzuurdesem.be/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/brood_lasigale.jpg