Ciabatta

Ciabatta - (Chee - BAH - tah)

So I thought I would expound a little bit on the interior of this ciabatta. I cut up the remaining part of the loaf (this was baked 3 days ago and we have been eating from it all weekend). I managed to get a few pictures taken before the urge to pop the slices into a toaster overwhelmed me and now the model has been consumed.

As a side note, I can see why fashion models are sought out by photographers as objects of their desire.

I blew up a portion of the only clear photo to illustrate the shiny aveole of the ciabatta's crumb. The crust was a medium dark - not milk chocolate or coffee, but more like baked potato color, but the reason the interior is so perfect is that I started the bake in a very hot oven (550 degrees F) and then let the oven temp drop to 465 degrees F after the initial oven spring. I also resisted the urge to remove the loaves when I smelled toast. I let them remain in a hot oven for the entire prescribed time (for me that was 25 minutes, but these loaves were 20 ounces each)

Okay, I admit it, I didn't scale the loaves - this was the biggest loaf that's why it is the only one left.

We already ate the others, one was as small as a small baguette, the medium one was a gift to my plumber so he could see that ciabatta is a very different beast than the stuff in the TV commercials that are called "ciabatta bread".

My theory is that if you have to qualify the name "ciabatta" with the word "bread" - it probably isn't.

If the interior of your ciabatta isn't shiny - at least near the edges - then you probably baked it at too low of a temperature or maybe you didn't bake it long enough. It could also be that you underdeveloped the gluten, but that would still get shiny. Look at the archive post on more info about gelatinization