Ciabatta is one of those breads that goes with anything and everything. And while traditional ciabatta is made with sourdough, which makes it a fairly time consuming process, this one is not. Most people don’t have that kind of time to spare just to get a delicious, soft and chewy bread, so here is a version that goes with the needs of today’s lifestyle.

This recipe is the recipe I bake the most in my house. And when I say I bake it a lot, we’re talking 3-7 times per week. It is minimal effort, few ingredients and no kneading required. From start to finish it takes less than 2 hours. However, YOU only have to put in about 20 minutes of work in total.

I’ve made this bread to countless braais (BBQs); as picnic rolls; packed school lunches; mini-rolls as finger sandwiched for afternoon tea; and as plain rolls to soak up that broth at the bottom of your winter soup.

I haven’t met a single person that didn’t love this bread, and it has become somewhat of a staple condiment of mine to any occasion. In our home we especially love it paired with baked Camembert on a Friday evening, or as an appetizer on the table for guests with some garlic and herb butter, while preparing the main meal.

It is airy and soft with a chewy crust, and that is why everyone thinks it’s traditional ciabatta. But make sure you calculate correctly for your amount of guests – because this bread will fly off that platter.

What you’ll need:

• two oven trays
• baking paper
• bowl
• wooden spoon
• kitchen scale or measuring jugs/spoons
• microwave or small pot
• bread scraper
• tea towel

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Ingredients

• 1 pkt (10 g) dry yeast or 50 g fresh yeast

• 1 tbsp syrup

• 100 ml milk

• 500 ml water

• 4,5 cups (1.125 l or 650 g) cake flour

• 2 tsp salt

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Directions

• In a large bowl, add the yeast and syrup.
• Combine the milk and water and heat to 45-50 degrees for dry yeast, and 37 degrees for fresh yeast.
  
  Pour 100 ml of the liquid in the bowl to dissolve the yeast, stirring with a wooden spoon. Once dissolved, add the remaining liquid.
• Add 3 cups of flour, and combine until lump-free.
• Add the remaining 1,5 cups of flour combined with the salt.
  
  The dough will be very sticky and wet. Dust a handful of flour on top, and cover with a tea towel to rise for 1-1,5 hours. The warmer the room, the shorter rising it needs. So in winter I will typically rise it for 1,5 hours, and in summer only 1 hour.
  
  30 minutes into rising, set your oven to 225-230 degrees Celsius.
• Dust your work surface with a generous amount of flour and pour the dough onto it. Dust a generous amount of flour on top of the dough, and pat it down gently, until it is about 2-2,5 cm in height. We do not want to break all those lovely air-bubbles that formed while rising, hence the gentle touch and this is what will make them ciabatta-like.
• In terms of cutting the dough before baking, you have several options:
  
  1. Cut three long logs and space on two trays with at least 5 cm in between. Bake for around 17 minutes. Once baked, you can cut 1-1,5 cm slices diagonally and use on a cheese platter.
  
  2. Cut into square/rectangular ciabatta rolls. I will typically start with making three logs, and then cut each log into 3-5 pieces. Space with at least 3 cm between rolls, and bake for about 15 minutes.
  
  3. Cut into mini-rolls that can be used in restaurant style bread baskets on your dinner table, or for finger sandwiches at afternoon tea. Cut into 4-5 logs, then cut each log into 6-8 pieces. Bake for about 14 minutes.

Since the dough is so wet and sticky, it can be a bit tricky to transfer it to the baking tray. This is why you need that generous dusting of flour, so that you can touch the dough and not have it stick all over your hands. If you have a bread scraper this is a great tool to use to wedge under the rolls or logs to lift it up. For the logs you will need the help of your hand as well. Anything really flat and thin can work, so if you have a large egg lifter that would also help.

Replacing ingredients
This bread is slightly addictive, and what more, it is not only versatile in terms of usage, you can also replace some or all of the cake flour for brown flour; add seeds in the dough or just sprinkle it on top before baking; or even replace 1/3 of the cake flour for rye flour (rise for minimum 1,5 hours). All these changes will however decrease the amount of air bubbles in the dough and not resemble ciabatta quite as much after baking. But it will be equally delicious and soft. You can even turn this bread vegan by replacing the milk for water and adding 1 tbsp of olive oil (as replacement for the fat in the milk).

Storage
On another positive note, these rolls freeze very well, as most breads do. Simply place them in zip-lock bags immediately after cooling completely and take out of the freezer to defrost in room-temperature about 2 hours before you intend to eat them. If you are not going to eat them all on the same day you baked them, you have to freeze them. Homemade bread which is free from preservatives goes dense and dry quite quickly, so it will be quite disappointing to eat them the next day unless you froze them. In the freezer they will keep for weeks. I tend to make a double batch and freeze them to make sandwiches for my kids’ school lunch boxes.

Sandwich suggestion
I love using these rolls for making cafe style sandwiches. This is one of my favourites:

Simply add: crispy cos lettuce; two slices of deep red tomatoes; thin slices of seared ostrich fillet; thin slices of red onion; and a drizzle of home made chili and garlic aioli.

Now that’s what I call a sandwich!