Originally posted in "Spiked Sourdough Ciabatta." Although this recipe is influenced by recipes from Peter Reinhart's Artisan Bread Every Day, this recipe is a Sulpicia original. It is very light and soft, while still having a slight sourdough flavor and the overnight bulk fermentation allows for richness and depth. Enjoy.
Ingredients:
Sourdough Starter
100g mature sourdough starter
65g bread flour
65 water
Final Dough
500g bread flour
15g whole wheat flour
400g warm water (95 degrees F)
14g salt (2 tsp)
1/2 tsp dry active yeast
2 tablespoons olive oil
Directions
Day 1:
Make the sourdough starter. Let it sit for 4-12 hours.
Mix together the sourdough starter with the water, salt, and yeast.
Then mix in the flour until you have a smooth-ish mass. Let sit for 5 minutes.
Drizzle the olive oil over the dough and kneed the oil into the dough for about 2 minutes.
In the bowl or on a lightly oiled surface, use the Peter Reinhart stretch-and-fold technique: do 2 stretch and folds, wait ten minutes and repeat, wait ten minutes and repeat, and wait ten minutes and repeat.
Cover the dough with plastic wrap (or similar) and place it in the refrigerator overnight.
Day 2:
Take the dough out and place it at room temperature (70-75 degrees) for 2 hours (about 4.5 hours before baking)
After the two hours, turn the dough out onto a floured surface. Gently make the dough into a rectangle and fold it in half.
Cut that in half and separate the two pieces of dough.
Fold each of the two pieces and fold the dough in thirds like a letter. Turn the dough seem side down onto a piece of floured parchment paper.
Let the dough rise for 2.5 hours at 80 degrees F. If the dough pieces seem to small to you, after one hour gently stretch the dough into slightly larger rectangles.
30 minutes before baking, heat the oven and your steaming mechanism of choice to 500 degrees F.
When ready to bake, slide the dough, parchment and all, into the oven and bake under steam for 15 minutes.
Turn the dough around and bake for another 10-12 minutes, or until the bread is 210 degrees F (interior temperature). It should feel hard on top and be extremely light weight.
I spiked the dough with bakers yeast in order to prevent it from becoming too sour. If you want more sour ciabatta, leave out the bakers yeast and maybe tack on another hour to the final rise (that is a guess).