Before #bingate, Bake Off did bread; rather fortunate for me as August was running out and I needed to make some bread for my New Year's resolution challenge. So this wasn't any bake - this was a two challenge bake!
As Paul Hollywood advised the Bake Off contestants, ciabatta is a bread which requires patience. To patience add planning; Hollywood's recipe calls for half the dough, water and yeast to be left to ferment for at least six hours (I left mine overnight), which apparently adds to the flavour.
As with baguettes, the dough for ciabatta is very sticky - a bit like working with chewing gum - and I find my machine (a Magimix 3200 compact) can't cope with it, which means I had to roll my sleeves up and (quite literally) get stuck in. With the luxury of time (unlike in the Bake Off tent), making bread can be a relaxing process. It was certainly worth the wait; these ciabatta went down very well with my friends.
