Ciabatta

We had dinner last week at TATU & hubby commented that he loved the bread there & I should make my blommers into little buns & freeze them.

The bread he had looked like ciabatta (pronounced cha-BAHT-ta) to me. This is one bread that I've always wanted to make but have been putting it off because I know this bread dough is not easy to handle, sticky & soft !
So I'm always in a 'to-do or not-to-do' situation. Yesterday, since I was wondering what bread to make, I decided to give ciabatta a try !

The recipe was adpated from Don Yong's Bread Winners :

Ingredients :

500g Bread flour
10g Malt flour *
8g Bread improver *
10g Salt
360g Cold water
10g Olive oil

With an electric mixer & dough hook on low speed, blend the dry ingredients for 1 min. Add water & continue mixing on low speed for 2 mins. Add olive oil & mix on medium speed for 12-15 mins until the dough is fully developed.

Transfer the dough onto alour-dusted work syrface & round up dough with both hands. Place the dough into an oiled plastic container. leave it to rise in a warm place for 1 1/2 hours until dough is double in bulk.

Remove & place the dough on a flour-dusted work surface. Divide into 3 pcs at 300g each. Dust the dough pcs with flour & gently stretch them lengthwise before placing on a paper-lined tray. prove in a warm, humid place for 20 mins.

Preheat the oven to 230C. Bake with a try of water to generate steam for the first 10 mins of baking time. Open the door of the oven & remove any water remaining. reduce the temperature to 210C & bake for another 15 mins.

* As usual I've omitted the bread improver & malt flour (I don't have it ). This bread dough is indeed very sticky. I even had to oil my hands to make handling easier as I do not want to keep on adding flour to the dough. It's tough for me to shape & stretch the dough gently as the dough keeps getting stuck to my fingers. I still ended up with 3 lengthy pcs of dough but the shape were ugly ! The pc that you see in this post is the most presentable of all (haha !!)
I find my ciabatta on a denser side & not really the porous texture. It was chewy & I liked the flavour of yeast & flour. Wonder when my ciabatta will turn out to be with nice big open crumb ??