This is a easy recipe for making ciabatta in the bread machine. The dough for ciabatta is very wet therefore very difficult to handle, that is when the bread machine comes very handy.

I love baking bread…not only the smell of the bread baking in the oven as well as watching the dough changing its form and texture as it rises. This is a very simple recipe for ciabatta. The only difference from the ones that I had baked before is the addition of semolina flour. Semolina flour as you might know is commonly used for making pasta. The addition of semolina flour gives the ciabatta a slightly chewier texture and intense color.

The dough might be harder to manage since it is pretty wet, but all well worth it! The ciabatta turned out great, the crumb was loaded with different sizes of air pockets, and the texture was chewy…delicious.

Ingredients:

Biga Starter

  • ½ cup bread flour
  • Pinch of yeast
  • ¼ cup water at room temperature

Dough

  • ¾ cup bread flour
  • ¼ cup semolina
  • ¼ teaspoon yeast
  • 2/3 teaspoon salt
  • ½ cup water at room temperature
  • All the biga prepared above

Method:

Biga

Mix all the ingredients for the biga in medium bowl. Cover with plastic and leave at room temperature up to 24 hours or overnight

Dough

Place all the ingredients of the dough in the bread machine and the biga. Turn on the bread machine to the kneading setting and let it mix/knead by occasionally scrapping the side of the mixing bucket.

The dough will be moist, after kneading for a while the gluten will form and the dough will not stick so much at the walls of the bucket.

If the dough does not pull away from the wall of the mixing bucket add ½ tablespoon of bread flour.

Once the cycle ends, place the stretchy dough in a very well oiled bowl. Make sure that the bowl is big enough because the dough will triple in size.

Cover with plastic wrap or kitchen towel. Let rise until triple.
Dust flour onto a surface and gently scrape the dough. Dust more flour on top, form a rectangle by pushing the sides of the dough.

Flip the dough on a cookie sheet with a parchment paper lightly dusted with flour. Top the dough with some more flour and cover loosely with plastic wrap and let rise until double of its initial size.

An hour or so before baking, put the baking stone into the oven on the lowest rack and preheat to 475 degrees. Place a pan or tray underneath it on the floor of the oven to preheat with the stone.

Slide the parchment paper to the stone and add ice cubes to the empty tray. Close the oven door and let if bake for 5 minutes, then turn the temperature to 450 degrees and bake for another 20 minute, rotating the stone once in between the baking time.

Once done with the baking time, turn off the oven and at the end of cooking turn off the oven and leave the loaf for 5 minutes with the door slightly open.

Let the loaf cool on the rack and serve warm.

If you enjoy this recipe for ciabatta you might want to take a look at No-Knead French Baguette recipe.

Did you know that semolina flour is high in gluten? Pasta made with semolina have a firm texture and hold its shape well. Since semolina is made from durum wheat, people that are sensitive or allergic to gluten should avoid eating semolina

Have a wonderful week and thank you so much for visiting Color Your Recipes!

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