Ciabatta

   I would like to offer a few bags of dinner rolls at market so I started with a ciabatta recipe - from the Bread Bible of course. It required a starter of yeast, water, flour, salt and a drop of honey. A variation listed that I could choose to use bread flour for a "chewier crust and bread". I personally like chewy bread so I opted for that.
   Next day: The dough hardly rose at all in the two hours after I mixed the starter sponge with more flour and dry ingredients. I was using it to make 4 small dinner rolls so I just cut the small piece into 4 smaller pieces and let it rise another hour. Not much rising :o/   20 minutes in the oven at 375 and they were hard as a rock. I was kind of disappointed but I tried a little trick I've learned. I put them in a plastic storage bag while they were still piping hot to steam them into softness. Although that did work, I still wasn't crazy about the outcome. They were too dense for ciabatta and really chewy. Too chewy.
   I'm going to try it with A/P flour next time instead of the bread flour chewy option and see how that comes out. If I'm still not happy with it, I'll find another recipe.

   Conclusion: No ciabatta rolls for market this week. But I will have herb focaccia bread - great for paninis!

Garlic Herb Focaccia