Dianne wrote:
>I have been making the recipe for ciabatta bread from Peter
>Reinhart'a book The Bread Baker's Apprentice_ for almost 2 years now
>and have yet to achieve the holes he talks about.
Sez who? |-) I don't know if given two ciabatta loaves, one with
holes twice the size of holes in the other, that the one with bigger
holes is necessarily the better one. My ciabatta loaves are airier
than my French bread loaves, but they don't look anywhere near hole-y
as the montrosity pictured in Reinhardt's book! |-
>I stretch it and follow the recipe except for using the steam pan
>but I do spray the oven with water like it suggests.
You should try using a steam pan. That's what I do. I don't even
bother with spraying anymore, since the volume of water in the pan (1
cup) is a whole lot more than I can introduce with spraying. Maybe
you can try BOTH the steam pan AND spraying? The surplus of steam
would slow the hardening of the crust and might help produce more
oven spring in the loaf.
>Does anyone have a solution? I use either Robin Hood bread flour or
>Rodger's bread flour.
Perhaps part of the problem is insufficient glutten development? How
long do you knead the dough? I usually knead with the dough hook on
my KitchenAid on setting #4 (middle setting) for 15-17 minutes.
Andy Nguyen