Ciabatta

Ciabatta is an Italian white bread made with wheat flour and yeast. The loaf is somewhat elongated, broad and flattish and, like a slipper, should be and somewhat collapsed in the middle. Since the late 1990s it has been popular across Europe and in the United States, and is widely used as a sandwich bread.
Ingredients
- 350 g sifted wheat flour
- 280 g lukewarm water
- 1 tsp salt
- 38 g olive oil (optional)
- 1 tsp active dry yeast
Steps
- Dissolve salt and yeast in lukewarm water.
- Add sifted wheat flour and olive oil. Mix.
- Mix until the dough is uniform in texture and consistency. Cover. Rest in a warm place 45 minutes.
- Stretch the dough and fold it over itself on all four corners, adding flour to the surface to prevent sticking. Cover. Rest about 30 minutes, until risen.
- Repeat stretching and folding on all sides to form air pockets. Cover. Rest 30 minutes.
- Repeat once more. Cover. Rest 30 minutes.
- Place dough on a baking sheet. Cut into equal parts to form smaller, elongated loaves.
- Bake in preheated oven at 430 F for 18 minutes.
Notes from the original
- Before closing oven, mist the bread dough with a spray bottle to ensure a crusty top.
- Some doughs used for making Ciabatta bread were left to ferment 18–24 hours before being worked; the batch of dough then being refreshed with the addition of water, malt, and salt, after which it was again allowed to sit without agitation so that it could rise.
Source. Adapted from “Cookbook:Ciabatta” by Wikibooks contributors, revision of 2025-07-15, licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Changes. Steps rewritten into short commands. Introduction shortened. Wiki formatting removed. This adapted recipe is shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Photo. Ciabatta cut.JPG by Vincent Talleu, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia. Resized; otherwise unchanged.






