Ciabatta recipe from Paul Hollywood

I have tried to make Ciabatta before but it’s never really turned out that well. I followed Paul Hollywood’s recipe this time from his book Bake and it really worked. I have to say I didn’t fully read his method but my adaptation seemed to turn out ok. Phew!

However I wouldn’t even attempt to make this if you don’t have a freestanding mixer with a dough hook or a bread maker with a dough setting. The mess and stress will be too much! It’s a very wet dough…

Ingredients

500g strong white bread flour, plus extra for dusting
10g salt
10g yeast
40ml olive oil
400ml tepid water

Method

If you want to follow Paul’s advice to the letter, then his recipe is here – granted he is clearly a better baker than me but if you want the less fussy way, read on…

Put the flour, salt & yeast in your mixer, then add the olive oil. Paul says add 3/4’s of the water, mix and then add the rest but I found this resulted in watery dough spraying all around, so next time I’m going for all the water at once. I think it will be fine.

Mix for up to 10 minutes – it will be a very sloppy dough (sorry no other words can describe it). I covered the dough and left it on the side until I wanted to cook it, which in this case was 7 hours later. I left it in my mixer as I failed to read the tip about leaving it to prove in a square box. 🙄

Gently tip the dough out, trying not to touch it, onto a floured surface. Slice into four, trying to get loaf–ish shapes by streching them very slightly (also covering your knife in flour will help). Place them on a floured baking tray and leave for 10 minutes or so…