This bread is a miracle. You begin by mixing an impossibly wet dough and leave it to ferment overnight. The next morning you look in the bowl and think ‘there is no way this bubbly, amorphous gloop will make decent ciabatta’. You keep faith and turn it out onto a piece of cling film, dusted with flour and stuck to the work surface with a spritz of water and, with a plastic bowl scraper you shape the dough into a slipper shape, cover and leave for a further hour to rise. Finally the dough is turned out onto a baking sheet dusted with flour and cooked for 40 mins at 220C. I could hardly believe this recipe for no knead ciabatta would work but it did. Do check out this YouTube link to get the method right. It is tricky….
Makes one large loaf
Ingredients
500g plain white bread flour
1/4tsp dried yeast
1.5 tsp salt
473g water
Method
Mix all the ingredients in a large bowl and leave to ferment overnight for between 8 and 10 hours. The dough will be very liquid and bubbling vigorously.
Spritz a worksurface with a thin layer of water and cut a large piece of clingfilm (approx.40cm) and place it over the damp worksurface. The water will make the clingfilm adhere to the surface.
Dust the cingfilm with a sprinkling of flour. Pour the dough from the bowl along the length of the clingfilm and with a plastic bowl scraper tease the dough into a long ‘slipper shape’. Ciabatta means slipper shape.
Place small glasses around the ciabatta and drape a damp, clean tea towel over the ciabatta dough so that it does not dry out and form a skin on the top. Leave for another hour.
Preheat the oven to 220C. Dust a silicone baking sheet (40cm x 35cm) with flour. Lift the clingfilm and ease the ciabatta dough onto the silicone baking sheet and with the plastic dough scraper tease the dough into the slipper shape. Dust the ciabatta with flour and breathe a sigh of relief that you have got this far without tipping whole lot onto the floor.
Place the loaf in the preheated oven for 40 minutes but do check it after 30 minutes as ovens do vary.