Ciabatta!!

kint posted a recipe for Ciabatta in food_porn. I made it today, and it is *fantastic*! The dough is very wet, but easier to handle than I anticipated, especially with a lot of flour and a bench knife :).





A stand mixer is a great help. I've seen demonstrations of this done in a bowl, including the folding, but this was pretty easy. The secret seems to be to handle the dough carefully enough to keep the bubbles intact without being too tentative and afraid. By the time you're plopping the loaves onto the baking stones (I made three loaves and used unglazed quarry tile on two racks, and baked at 430F with convection), the dough is still very soft and very wet but very strong, too.

I used regular active dry yeast, and it worked beautifully. A flour sack towel rubbed with flour was perfect for covering the dough.