Ciabatta Photo

Ciabatta, Paul Hollywoods recipe, adapted to TMX.

This recipe is from Paul Hollywood's book Bread.  It has a light crunchy crust and flavoursome soft crumb.
You need to allow 9 to 10 hours to make these 2 loaves.
6 hours for the first mix.
2 to 3 hours for the next step
30 minutes before baking and 30 minutes to bake.

Ingredients

400g strong bread flour,I used Laucke which has salt and sugar added.
7g. fast acting dried yeast
300 g cool water
2 Tablespoons olive oil
( 7 g of salt if NOT using mix)
Fine Semolina for dusting.

Baking tray,
and
20 cm square x 12 cm high plastic container with lid.

Method

In a bowl, mix 200g flour
1/2 the yeast and 200 mls of water.
Mix and beat well with a wooden spoon.
cover and set aside for 6 hours.

Tip into TMX and add remaining yeast, flour, water and salt if using.
Knead 4 minutes.

Tip into the well oiled container and cover with lid.
( it is important that the container is square as this help with the shaping in the next step)
Allow it to rise  2 to 3 hours until it fills the container. ( my container was 23 cm square so I let it rise to 3/4 fill the container)

Heat oven to 220 C or 200C FF.

Being careful not to knock out all the air, tip the contents of the container on to a well dusted silmat or bench, the dusting mixture should be 1/2 Semolina and 1/2 flour.
Cut in half with a well floured knife.

Stretch slightly , to fit the baking tray by pulling on the ends.
Dust the tray with the Semolina/flour mix.
Lift careful on to tray leaving room between loaves.  i did this with aid of a large spatula.
Dust top lightly with Semolina mix.

Cover with plastic and let stand for 30 minutes.

 Remove plastic and bake for 30 minutes.

If you have a light and glass door on your oven, you can watch it rise. It is quite amazing.