anna's ciabatta bread, almost

i noticed last week that anna olson's fresh is on tv again. in one of the episodes she made ciabatta and roasted vegetable lasagna, both of which i decided to try. my lasagna came out totally different but that is another story altogether, and later on that. anna's recipe here.







the biga bubbling on sunday morning (my use of "morning" in very loose...)







my kitchen aid did most of the work with the dough. anna's recipe calls for just all-purpose flour. i wanted to add some bite and fiber into mine and used 1 cup all-purpose, 1 cup bread flour (mixture of wheat, barley and rye, with flaxseeds) and 1/3 cup whole wheat.







little hands on was required, streching the dough before the first rise.







the dough was too wet to knead but easy enough to strech and divide on the floured countertop.







for the second rise i placed the dough on parchment-lined baking trays sprinkled with cornmeal (karkea maissijauho in finnish), then covered with slightly moist kitchen towel.







i searched for a spray bottle to get some steam in the oven (and it would have been usefull to moisten the kitchen towel, as well) but couldn't find one...a squirt gun would have worked, too. the recipe calls for creating steam in the oven to get that hard crust on the bread. i whisked some water on the bottom of the oven and placed a small glass dish with water in it into the oven. in no time the water was bubbling and creating steam...







i wish you could have smelled the bread...and the crust! so good...anna's recipe is very well written, therefore easy to follow. my usual problem with yeast risen home made breads are that you taste the yeast and the bread really isn't that good the next day. here, the taste of yeast is there but not nearly as strong as usual, and it was still nice this morning. will use some to make a chicken sandwich for dinner to work...