CA: Ciabatta! best bread so far... (in reverse)
pics @: http://www.flickr.com/stevejohman
This memorial day weekend, i made ciabatta for the first time. It was supposed to be for this meal with my parents, but they changed the time so i had to buy BUNS instead. ugh. anyways, this was a lot of fun- more work than other breads and the dough is SUPER wet, but its nice and light and fluffy- and the results were great! you can just eat this with a little oil (i used some truffle oil) - or- my favorite is a bit of goat cheese... which my wife hates. yum, more for me!
used the Cook's Illustrated version which was interesting- uses milk - not for flavor but to help manipulate the texture and size of air holes. this one uses a biga, which is a starter too, to get some nice sour flavor. good good stuff. highly recommend making this.
