have been baking over 30 loaves with this recipe and absolutely love it!
baked various types too, ranging from rosemary raisin to multi-seed to 100% whole wheat. and this recipe just works great. no wonder richard bertinent says it's his favourite bread recipe.
actual recipe is for a ciabatta but found that could be used for all types of breads. it's a very wet dough so you need a dough knife/scraper as well as the "stretch and fold" technique shown by mr bertinent in this video here.
ferment
350gm flour
180gm water
2gm instant yeast (i use less than 1/4 teaspoon)
baking day
450gm flour
360gm water
50gm olive oil (okay to use less)
10gm instant yeast (i use slightly less than 1 teaspoon)
15gm salt (i use only 11gm)
mix all the ingredients of the ferment and let it sit for 17-24 hours. it's quite a dry ferment as it's only 50% hydration. if it's too dry, add a bit more water. try 2 tablespoon each time.
mix everything on baking day, then "stretch and fold". it's a very very wet dough so you definitely need a dough knife.
do not flour the work surface. the dough will stick somewhat to the surface but as you work on it, it slowly gains shape and less and less of it sticks to the table. [watch the video!]
let it prove for an hour, then divide and prepare to bake!
the oven should be pre-heated to 250c. before placing dough in, squirt at least 15-20 times of water into the oven to create enough steam.
place dough in and squirt another few times. 5 minutes later, reduce heat to 220c and bake for additional 15 minutes or until golden brown.
note, no honey/sugar is used but bread still has a golden hue. this is due to the natural solutions developed during the fermentation process.
mr bertinent recommends 20gm less water for rainy days (humid weather) but his recipe is all white flour. if you use whole wheat, you may use same amount of water. when i bake with 100% whole wheat flour, the consistency feels a bit "dry". it's still a wet dough by any standards but after working with wet dough, this feels a little "dry"!
there you go. enjoy this recipe! enjoy the crust, the most delicious bread crust!
Showing posts with label ciabatta. Show all posts
Showing posts with label ciabatta. Show all posts
Sunday, December 20, 2009
Sunday, September 20, 2009
another version of wholemeal ciabatta
aha! i'm getting a hang of mr bertinent's technique here.
stretch and fold, stretch and fold...
this time, used up to 70% wholemeal and 30% white flour. the crust is simply delicious!
Thursday, September 3, 2009
reached an impasse in bread baking so have to try new ground
i have reached an impasse in my bread baking. been baking for about a year now but have stopped experimenting with new stuffs. been using the same basic recipe over and over again.
so need to try new stuffs.
it so happened that i bought 2 books on bread baking recently during the book fair organized by popular about a week ago. kuala lumpur bookworms have been having one hell of a time as there have been so many book fairs etc. i have acquired more than ten books in the past few months and have had hell of a journey devouring them!
one of the bread book i bought and just finished reading is richard bertinent's crust.
this book was sold at half price (hardcover!). it comes with a dvd too as no amount of text written could describe better the techniques used by mr bertinent than watching him in action.
and so, i tried one of the recipes in his book.
baked the ciabatta...
of course, this is all done with white flour, not my favourite at all, as i'm for wholemeal bread.
followed the recipe to a tee, as i wanted to see how it would turn out in the end.
mr bertinent recommends to weigh all ingredients (even water) rather than use spoons or cups as this is far more accurate. but he also acknowledged that some adjustments have to be made to cater for your local environment, say it's a hot sunny day or a cool rainy day etc.
now this ciabatta consists of 2 parts, a biga and then the real thing. this biga is unlike previous biga i did before, as it's a lot drier and consists more than 1/3 of the flour.
instead of the usual kneading, mr bertinent recommends the "stretch and fold" technique. it's quite interesting but could be very very messy as we are dealing with a very wet dough here. i do agree him that wet doughs still turn out better bread than dry doughs even dry doughs are easier to handle/knead.
needless to say, i made a mess on my kitchen top. got wet gooey dough all over the place!
the other difference in technique is that mr bertinent prefers to preheat the loaf pan to 250c and sprays mists of water into the oven to create steam. something which i never tried before! he suggests to preheat the oven to 250c, then once you place the dough in, let it bake for 5 minutes, then turn down the temperature to 220c for an additional 20 minutes.
compare to my tried and tested 180c over 40 minutes, this is interesting!
well... after all the work... i can say the result is worthwhile!
so need to try new stuffs.
it so happened that i bought 2 books on bread baking recently during the book fair organized by popular about a week ago. kuala lumpur bookworms have been having one hell of a time as there have been so many book fairs etc. i have acquired more than ten books in the past few months and have had hell of a journey devouring them!
this book was sold at half price (hardcover!). it comes with a dvd too as no amount of text written could describe better the techniques used by mr bertinent than watching him in action.
and so, i tried one of the recipes in his book.
baked the ciabatta...
of course, this is all done with white flour, not my favourite at all, as i'm for wholemeal bread.
followed the recipe to a tee, as i wanted to see how it would turn out in the end.
mr bertinent recommends to weigh all ingredients (even water) rather than use spoons or cups as this is far more accurate. but he also acknowledged that some adjustments have to be made to cater for your local environment, say it's a hot sunny day or a cool rainy day etc.
now this ciabatta consists of 2 parts, a biga and then the real thing. this biga is unlike previous biga i did before, as it's a lot drier and consists more than 1/3 of the flour.
instead of the usual kneading, mr bertinent recommends the "stretch and fold" technique. it's quite interesting but could be very very messy as we are dealing with a very wet dough here. i do agree him that wet doughs still turn out better bread than dry doughs even dry doughs are easier to handle/knead.
needless to say, i made a mess on my kitchen top. got wet gooey dough all over the place!
the other difference in technique is that mr bertinent prefers to preheat the loaf pan to 250c and sprays mists of water into the oven to create steam. something which i never tried before! he suggests to preheat the oven to 250c, then once you place the dough in, let it bake for 5 minutes, then turn down the temperature to 220c for an additional 20 minutes.
compare to my tried and tested 180c over 40 minutes, this is interesting!
well... after all the work... i can say the result is worthwhile!
please forgive the pics. took with my phone as can't resist taking a bite!
look at the holes! look at the beautiful holes!
look at the crust! look at the beautiful crust!
even wifey agrees this is a wonderful bread. smells lovely and the crust is just heavenly...
my only complaint is that white bread absolutely sucks! so will be trying the same recipe but with wholemeal bread this weekend.
stay tuned...
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