Homemade Ciabatta Bread - Seasons and Suppers (2024)

Delicious homemade ciabatta bread is not nearly as hard to make at home as you may think! This ciabatta recipe is great for first-time ciabatta bakers!

If you’re anything like me, the weekends are when I really dig in to cooking and baking projects. So in that spirit, I thought I’d share a great recipe for making this delicious ciabatta bread recipe this weekend. It’s not nearly as hard to make as you might think.

I’m not going to lie though, this is probably not the bread that should be your first bread-baking experience. It’s somewhat unique in both it’s consistency and method. That’s not to say it’s hard – just different :)

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Ingredients and Substitutions
Making this ciabatta bread
Recipe Tips
Storing and Freezing
Get the Recipe: Homemade Ciabatta Bread
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Ingredients and Substitutions

Flour – Bread flour will always give the best results when making ciabatta, but all purpose flour will technically work, with a bit of a compromise on texture. You may find you need a little extra flour is using all purpose flour.

Yeast – I only use SAF Instant Yeast for all my yeast baking. I highly recommend it. Regular Active Dry yeast will also work.

Making this ciabatta bread

This bread starts with a yeast “starter” dough. I like to mix it up quickly before going to bed and then let it bubble away on the counter over-night. Then the next morning, I can just carry on with making the bread.

Once you mix the dough, you’re immediately going to notice that you have more of a batter than a dough. Resist the urge to add more flour at this point. The secret to those great holes it to have a really moist dough and the more flour you add, the more you’ll be defeating that.

This is not a bread dough that will ever be kneadable!

That said, you will need to add a little bit of flour along the way here. Purists will suggest flouring your hands (or even wetting them to deal with the dough). That’s great advice if you have lots of experience with wet dough. For the rest of us, a little sprinkling of flour here and there is a sanity saver!

Even as you move along with this dough, it will resemble a jiggly mass that seems to be barely holding its shape. Again, just go with it as much as you can, adding only enough flour to remove extreme stickiness.

Recipe Tips

I cannot recommend the use of a silicone bowl scraper enough when dealing with this dough. It’s worth picking one up for this bread for sure – it’s a sanity saver! A metal bench scraper sprayed with cooking oil will also work. If all else fails, a large silicon spatula would be my choice. All these tools will allow you to work this dough without actually touching it with your hands, which is a bonus when working with a sticky dough.

Storing and Freezing

Store baked bread in an airtight container at room temperature for a couple of days, or freeze for longer storage.

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Get the Recipe: Homemade Ciabatta Bread

Learn how to make ciabatta bread at home, with this easy ciabatta bread recipe!

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Prep Time: 3 hours hrs

Cook Time: 25 minutes mins

Total Time: 3 hours hrs 25 minutes mins

Yield: 2 loaves

Ingredients

Yeast Starter Dough: (Start 8-12 hours ahead - the night before works perfectly)

1/2 teaspoon active dry yeast or instant yeast
3/4 cup (177 ml) water, at room temperature
1 cup (125 g) bread or all-purpose flour, bread flour recommended

Ciabatta Dough:

1/2 teaspoon active dry yeast or instant yeast
3/4 cup (177 ml) water, at room temperature
All of the Yeast Starter Dough From above, plus the following:
2 cups (250 g) bread or all-purpose flour, bread flour recommended
1 1/2 teaspoons salt

Instructions

This bread dough is very moist and loose, but only use as much additional flour as you need to be able to handle it without it sticking. Be sure to start your starter dough 8-12 hours ahead of when you want to make your bread.
For the Yeast Starter Dough: Combine all ingredients in a 1-quart (4-cup) bowl and stir well. Cover with plastic wrap and allow to sit at room temperature for 8-12 hours (overnight works perfectly).
For the Ciabatta Dough: In a large bowl or the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with a paddle attachment, stir the yeast in to the water. Add all of the Yeast Starter Dough that you made earlier and has been sitting. Mix briefly. Add the flour and salt and mix to combine. Beat on medium-low for 3 minutes. Stop the mixer and let dough rest for 10 minutes. Beat again on medium-low for 3 minutes. Stop again and let dough rest for 10 minutes.
Remove dough to a lightly oiled bowl large enough to hold double the amount of dough. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and let the dough rest until it starts to puff up, about 30-45 minutes.
Using a silicone bowl scraper or spatula, scrape the dough on to a well-floured work surface. Have a cup of flour handy to use. Sprinkle the top of the dough with some flour. Using your silicone bowl scraper, scoop up one edge of the dough and fold it over the top of the dough to reach the middle. Scoop up the opposite edge and scoop it up to cover the fold you just made. Add some more flour to your board and the top of the dough (just enough to control stickiness). Let dough rest for 15 minutes and then repeat this same folding. Let rest another 15 minutes.
Line a baking sheet with parchment paper. Sprinkle the parchment paper with flour. Roughly shape the dough in to an 8x8-inch square . Using a sharp knife, cut your dough into two 4x8-inch rectangles. Gently transfer to the parchment-lined baking sheet by using a bench scraper positioned underneath the rectangles to support it. Flour the top of the dough then cover with a tea towel and allow to rise until puffy, about 30 minutes.
Meanwhile, preheat oven to 475° F. (regular bake setting/not fan assisted)
Bake in the preheated oven for 20-25 minutes, or until deep golden brown and the internal temperature is over 200° Transfer to a cooling rack to cool.

Notes

Be sure to read the notes above this Recipe Card for more tips, options, substitutions and variations for this recipe!

Cuisine: American, Canadian

Course: Bread

Author: Jennifer Maloney

Serving: 1loaf, Calories: 689kcal, Carbohydrates: 143g, Protein: 20g, Fat: 1g, Sodium: 1758mg, Potassium: 200mg, Fiber: 5g, Calcium: 28mg, Iron: 8.7mg

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Jennifer Maloney

Hi! I’m Jennifer, a home cook schooled by trial and error and almost 40 years of getting dinner on the table! I love to share my favourite recipes, both old and new, together with lots of tips and tricks to hopefully help make your home cooking enjoyable, stress free, rewarding and of course, delicious!

www.seasonsandsuppers.ca/about/

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originally published on Jan 10, 2015 (last updated Aug 16, 2023)