Ciabatta

By susanwadle

Ingredients

• Starter:
• 1 tablespoon cracked wheat berries (or whole wheat flour)
• 1 tablespoon cracked rye berries (or rye flour)
• 3 cups/14 ounces/400 grams unbleached white all purpose flour
• 1 cup/8 ounces/240 grams tepid water
• ¼ teaspoon/1 gram active dry yeast dissolved in 1 cup warm water (set aside)
• Dough:
• 1 teaspoon/4 grams active dry yeast
• 3 ½ cups/15.5 ounces/430 unbleached white all purpose flour
• 1 tablespoon/.4 ounces/11 grams salt

Details

Servings 2
Adapted from ruhlman.com

Preparation

Step 1

Starter:
Combine the grains and tepid water in a medium sized mixing bowl.
Add 1 teaspoon of the yeasted water (discard the rest)
Mix it into a firm ball, kneading it  just a bit.
Cover the bowl and let it rest at room temperature for 12 to 24 hours

Dough:Cut the starter dough into 6 or 8 pieces and put them in a large mixing bowl. Pour 2 cups/450 grams warm water over it and let sit a few minutes to soften. Feel free to get your hands  in there to break it up a bit more.
Add the dough ingredents and, using a wooden spoon, beat the mixture together well. It will resemble a stiff pancake batter and appear quite rough, don’t worry about completely incorporating the starter dough. (This can also be accomplished in a stand mixer using the paddle attachment, but I think it comes together better with a wood spoon or paddle).  Let the dough sit, covered lightly, in a warm spot.
Come back to it every 20 minutes or so and pull the dough away from the sides of the bowl and into the center using a rubber spatula or dough scraper. Do this four times. After the last turn you will be able to see that the dough has become smoother and more uniform, now cover and let it finish rising for another hour and a half. Total rising time for this period should be 2 ½ to 3 hours.
Scrape the dough out onto a well floured surface and fold together lightly. Divide into two equal loaves and either pull apart into a flat focaccia style or fold the two ends into the center, like folding a letter, to form rectangular mound.
Place loaves on parchment paper lined sheet pan side by side for final rise, ½ hour to 45 minutes.
Prep your oven by preheating to 450 degrees F/230 degree C. and putting a baking stone, or in my case, a cast iron griddle on the middle rack and a baking pan half full of water right on the very bottom. Mine is long enough for both loaves (if you have neither, just bake it right on the pans).
When ready to bake, lightly flour the tips of your fingers and dock each loaf, deflating some of the bubbles; don’t worry, it’ll bounce back in the oven.
Cut the parchment paper between the loaves to separate, and slide each loaf right onto to the stone or griddle. Bake until dark golden brown and internal temp reaches 200 degrees, approximately 25 minutes.