MLK Day Ciabatta

It just so happened that we needed bread, I was off from work today, and I've been wanting to make a Ciabatta.  I've never made one before, but we do eat an awful lot of them.  I figured it couldn't be too hard, but I knew that they require a really high hydration dough, which can be tough to work with.  Despite telling myself last night that I needed to figure out which recipe I'd use while I still had time, predictably, I didn't do it.  Thus I found myself this morning looking for an "easy" recipe.  I don't like no-knead bread recipes, or any other type of lazy-way-out.  I found a "quick" ciabatta recipe from a trusted source, the pictures looked good, and the comments were almost unanimously in favor of the method described in the recipe.  So I got to work. 

I was initially a little worried about the temperature of our apartment (a hair above freezing-ass-cold) because the recipe said that the dough should TRIPLE! GAHHH!  Anyway, I mixed the dough and flopped it into the KitchenAid mixer bowl (been dying for an excuse to use it).  After just a few minutes, the mixer was walking across the kitchen floor and the dough was flapping comically against the sides of the bowl. 

Fast forward to the agonizing rise.  After four hours (the recipe said usually within 2.5) I wasn't sure if the dough had tripled, so I put it directly in front of a space heater.  That lasted about 5 minutes before I was ready to just go for it.  Luckily, it turned out great!!  I'm really happy with these loaves.  I could have shaped them a little better (the dough was reaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaally soft) but I got really nice blisters in the crust, and the best crumb of any bread I've baked yet. 


Finally, here are the pictures!!!

I also managed to build myself some sweet plywood shelves for my records/ stereo to go along with Naomi's decluttering project.