No-Knead Ciabatta

Leah's Kitchen's Note:

This is one of my most favorite recipes. It has very few ingredients but turns out very well. When you take it out of the oven you can hear the crust crackling-very nice! Hope you like it as much as we do. (If you want to use whole wheat you can add only a half a cup to this recipe -more than that will make the bread dense) Also if you only have active dry yeast- double the yeast amount to 1/2 tsp. Note* since it is a no-knead recipe it is a pretty flat loaf with a max. height of about 5-7 inches.

• Total Time: 30 mins
• Prep Time: 5 mins
• Cook Time: 25 mins

Ingredients:

Serves: 6-8

Yield: 1.0 large l ...

• 2 cups water
• 1/4 teaspoon instant yeast
• 1 1/2 teaspoons salt
• 3 1/2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
• 1/2 cup whole wheat flour

Directions:

1. Mix the water, yeast, and salt together in a large bowl.
2. Add flour one cup at a time.
3. Stir until all the flour is pretty much absorbed.
4. Cover with a kitchen towel and set aside for 18 hours or overnight.
5. In the morning uncover the dough and slightly pat it down with a rubber spatula to deflate it.
6. Sprinkle cornmeal onto a baking sheet.
7. With a rubber spatula scrape the wet dough out onto the pan, don't worry if it looks a little messy, straighten it out a little with floured hands.
8. Set pan aside uncovered for 2 hours to rise (don't expect it to rise much).
9. Preheat oven to 425F an hour before the bread will be done rising.
10. Note:If you like you can sprinkle flour over the top of the risen dough right before you put it in the oven, this will give it the nice crackly floured look when it is done.
11. Bake bread for 20-30 minutes. It will be done when the crust has a deep golden color. Enjoy!

Reviews

[ElishevaH]

First class bread! I made this twice already. First time, doubled the amount using only whole wheat flour. I let it rise in a warm place and it smelled a bit strong but was fine after baking. 4 children ages 5-18 thought it was delicious. Second time, used 80% whole wheat flour and let it rise in an unheated room. Second rising in muffin pans-they were gobbled up, all 24 of them. Texture was beautifully spungy and moist inside and crusty on the outside for both types of flour. Bread and butter heaven- on-earth.

[inane5]

I don't really eat a lot of bread and this is my first time baking it. I chose this recipe since it's basic and easy. Everything came out as it should, even though I used all "better for bread" flour and dusted the pan with flour instead of corn meal. I also had a small pan of water in the oven for steam action. At the end of the day though, I find that I'm just not a big fan of bread in general and cannot really appreciate homemade ciabatta, over regular toast. That's just me though. If anything, I find the hard crust inconvenient, and the plain flavor of the bread a bit boring. Is it possible to make this with things like chopped rosemary, olives, jalapeno peppers, minced onions, garlic, etc into the dough? And at what step would I add this? That's going to probably my next experiment in baking.

By the way, I'm not sure why step 9 says to preheat 1 hour before it finishes rising. Can someone explain that? My oven can get to 425 in around 10 minutes, so why waste the electricity? lol.

[gailanng]

I've been poking around your recipes a bit, but don't worry because I'll put everything back where I found it. Mouth watering and I'll clean up that mess, too. Made for Soups & Breads.