Ciabatta

I have been trying to make good yeast bread for a while now. I have made a few good loaves, I have tried all different kinds of recipes, some from family and friends, some from cookbooks, blogs, websites, you name it. However, nothing has been great. Recently, I decided to get a new cookbook devoted completely to yeast breads, specifically artisan breads. It had a lengthy introduction, in which the author described the process of fermentation, of the different stages of rising, how to pull more flavor out of the basic ingredients of yeast, flour, water, and salt. I'm a total sucker for great bread like this, so I was certain that finally, this would be my ticket to learning how to make great bread. I would no longer have to choose what type of loaf I wanted to treat myself to in the supermarket or the special bread store. I would be able to make most of them, so I could concentrate on the really specialty items. Well, that was the plan anyways.

I started out with a pre-ferment, Reinhart explains that in order to get more flavor out of the basic ingredients, you really need to give them more time to work together. I picked the ciabatta recipe becuase it seemed straightforward, it was a lean bread, it would benefit from a long rise, and I had never done it before. In order to truly practice, I did not halve or reduce the recipe in any way, shape or form. I didn't want to wonder if I messed it up, although the author does specify that you should be able to learn to do this eventually, he encourages learning the recipe's formula as ratios so that you can always increase (or in my case, decrease) the yield.

The pre-ferment is just a mixture of a tiny amount of yeast, flour, and water which you let sit on the counter for about 3-4 hours. You then refrigerate it for at least 1 day to stop the fermentation and coax the flavor out of the flour. Here is my pre-ferment on the morning of baking day:This is mixed into the recipe for the rest of the bread, which has more yeast, flour, water, and salt. Supposedly the old and new doughs will combine to give you all the layers of beautiful taste between crust and crumb in these specialty breads.
They stress not over-kneading, and the dough will always look shaggy because a lot of work happens durring the multiple rises and rests that you give it after kneading.
To make the classic ciabatta, you fold the dough over itself in a bed of flour a few times to allow it to rise. I think the idea here is that in order to get those beautiful big holes in the bread, you really need to let the gasses develop in the dough during these phases. Mine rose significantly, but I am not sure now if they were really ready to go into the oven at this point. However, the time was right, and I was trying to be really careful to follow directions.

I even dragged Chris to Home Depot with me to look for tiles to put in our oven to simulate hearth baking. I tried to do the steam thing that the book and others have specified. I basically freaked myself out by doing all of this and cooking at 500 degrees. I am much more comfortable at a lower temp. And the result was a disaster. Totally and completely burned on the bottom, and very dense inside. They looked close to correct, but I can't lie, they weren't really good at all.
So what is the moral to the story? I did this a couple weeks ago, and I have honestly thought a lot about what to post about this experience. There is a part of me that seriously could be done with bread baking all together, aside from pizza, flatbreads, rolls, cinnamon rolls, etc. I have taken my oven stone out, and I am not sure if I will put it back in. I have really struggled with the fact that this went so poorly.

And I know that this is a silly thing to get worked up over. It is not realistic to think that you will ever be able to replicate at home what they do in commercial settings with specified equipment and a totally different environment. I keep telling myself that I have had great success with the things that I have tried, there has to be a margin for error, you aren't going to be great at everything you put your mind to. The logical side of my brain totally accepts this. The emotional side is still frustrated. It's screaming out, "WHY??" What did I do or not do?" (and maybe a touch of "It's not fair!!" thrown in there.) And it is OKAY. If I never learn to make great yeast breads I think I will be able to accept that. I hope so. It doesn't mean that I will necessarily stop trying. Hopefully I will learn from my mistakes and not expect perfection on the first try. But it is a typical case of letting the one thing that you can't do or have detract from everything you can do or do have. I decided to post this because I wanted to be honest with you about my successes and failures. I wanted to share a moment of personal learning that I have experienced more than once. Sometimes you have to step back and breathe.