Ancient Grain Ciabatta

Related posts:
All About Ciabatta: notes from a class
Chocolate Ciabatta with Dried Cherries and Roasted Hazelnuts
Of Bread and Bridges: a baking weekend in San Antonio

As mentioned in All About Ciabatta, we made several different ciabattas during the class last May. The formulas have all been posted on the Bread Bakers' Guild of America's website but they are only available to BBGA members. We are authorized to post the ones we make at home provided we also post the following note (and I quote): "The mission of The Bread Bakers Guild of America is to shape the knowledge and skills of the artisan baking community through education.  Guild members have access to many other innovative professional formulas, both online and in the Guild’s magazine, Bread Lines. For more information about membership, please visit www.bbga.org."
I have been a Guild member for over five years now and, between you and me, I never regretted joining. Not only do I look forward to getting the magazine every quarter but I enjoy having access to the archives, to a zillion tested formulas, to the lively online forum, to the classes taught by the Guild, etc. BBGA describes itself on its website as "an independent and creative group of professional bakers, farmers, millers, suppliers, educators, students, home bakers, technical experts, and bakery owners and managers." But to me, it is a big family centered around the craft of making bread and I really like it. And just so that you know, nobody is twisting my arm or promising me a free membership!
That being said, eighty-five dollars a year - for an individual - isn't exactly peanuts and while BBGA isn't in the money-making business (it is an educational non-profit and mostly run by volunteers), only you can say if joining it is worth your while...

Now on to ciabatta. Why make this particular one? Well, we both happen to love teff (and to have some in the pantry) and while I am not a huge fan of amaranth, I have some on hand which is desperately calling for attention. Besides, we saw amaranth plants at the Botanical Garden in Montreal a few years back and I can't resist the idea of baking some of these colors into our diet (never mind the fact that, when all is said and done, amaranth flour is made from the seed, not the flower and it is, well, flour-colored)...

Ingredients

For those of you who are using BreadStorm (including the free version), please click on this link to import the formula.  For more on BreadStorm, you may want to read this post.

Tips

A bit of care needs to be taken with this ciabatta because the protein in ancient flours is soluble in water and has no gluten, which means in practical terms:

• A shorter mixing time
• A very low fermentation tolerance: if the oven isn't ready when the dough is, put it in the fridge for 20 to 30 minutes
• Variable water absorption: you may need to add water until you get the right consistency.
• A possible fold: if you find that the dough is very extensible and has no elasticity, then you will need to do one fold

Ancient grain ciabatta dough as it came out of the mixer during class

 Method

The night before the bake

1. Mix the amaranth poolish, cover it loosely and let it ferment overnight (12 hours) at 73°F/23°C
2. Mix the teff sponge, cover it loosely and let it ferment overnight (12 hours) at 73°F/23°C

On baking day

Desired dough temperature (DDT): 73°F/23°C to 76°FF/24°C
(Depending on the room and the flour temperatures, you will need to use cooler or warmer water in the final dough to obtain the DDT at the end of the mixing process)

1. Scale the flour, yeast and salt. Whisk yeast and salt into the flour and reserve
2. Place the poolish, the sponge, the dry mix (flour + yeast + salt) and water 1 in the bowl of the mixer
3. Mix on first speed (on a spiral mixer) or speed 4 (on a Kitchen Aid) for 4 or 5 minutes
4. Mix on second speed (on a spiral mixer) or speed 8 (on a Kitchen Aid) for 2-3 minutes
5. Check gluten development. When gluten is 80% developed, add water 2 by increments on first speed (4 on Kitchen Aid) and mix for about 3 minutes
6. Transfer to oiled dough tub, cover and let ferment at 73°F/23°C - 76°FF/24°C for 2 hours and 30 minutes
7. Transfer the dough to a generously floured surface (see relevant video in All About Ciabatta: Notes from a Class), taking care not to let it fold over itself and going easy with the stretching as the dough will be fragile
8. Divide and scale at 500 g (you should have four ciabattas)
9. Proof on floured linen, top down, for one hour (or 30 to 40 minutes if room temperature is warm)
10. Dust with a mixture of teff, amaranth and white flours
11. Bake with steam on a baking stone in a 420°F - 216°C oven for 30 minutes (turning oven down to 400°F-204°C after 10 minutes, tenting with foil if over browning after 20 minutes and propping the oven door open (with a wooden spoon) for the last five minutes
12. Cool on a rack
13. Enjoy!

During the class, someone asked Didier about changing the percentage of ancient grain in the formula and here is what he said in response: "Twenty to twenty-five percent total ancient grain compared to total flour is optimal for flavor, structure and volume."

One-handed Ciabatta

As you may have noticed if you have kept up with this blog for the past few months, it has taken me a long time to go back to baking after Noah died. I am not sure why really. The only explanation I can find is that I needed a little flame to keep going and the little flame was gone.
In early July, just as I was finally thinking of baking again (I had started a new levain, it was bubbling actively and I was planning to put it to the test), I broke my left wrist.
The levain went into the fridge and back we went to buying our bread (fortunately there are several excellent bakeries in Seattle) or eating the beautiful and tasty loaves that baker friends most kindly shared with us.
All these months I had never really missed baking but this time around I felt really frustrated. However there was not much I could do about it with a broken wrist, so at first I did nothing.
Then Sunday a week ago my hand turned a bit dusky and a bluish tinge started creeping down to my fingers. According to the discharge sheet we had been given, this was reason for concern. I called the hospital hotline. We were told to go to the emergency room immediately.
To make a long story short, the physician on guard cut my cast open to make it less tight and the following day, I got a brand-new one, a bit shorter at both ends than the previous one, which made it easier for me to fold my arm and move my fingers.
Now I know the surgeon had said yes to typing again and no to bread-mixing and DSLR-photography (see this post). But as it turned out, typing is actually not that comfortable (I can do it but it makes for swollen fingers) while a few other things come more easily: for instance, pinching and lifting small things between my fingers (the thumb still not opposable because the cast holds it back) or putting a tiny bit of weight on my arm. Plus when I spoke to the physical therapist who prescribed daily exercises, he basically told me to try and go back to what I loved without overdoing anything and to see how it went. Needless to say, that was music to my ears...
So a few days ago, I sat my baking self down for some hard thinking:

• First the levain needed to come out of the fridge so that I could see what kind of a mood it was in. Fed once a day for a couple of days, it soon started bubbling again. I knew I would have no problem there
• Then I looked at my brand-new cast. Hand-mixing was out of the question: not only did I have to keep the cast clean and dry but even if I managed to hold the bowl in the curve of my left arm, I couldn't overtax my right wrist (I have had problems with it in the past). Fortunately I have a Kitchen-Aid mixer. I resolved to use it
• Shaping was next: there was no way I could shape a boule or a batard. But I could bake in a pan or I could bake a bread that required no shaping, such as a ciabatta. With Didier Rosada's All about ciabatta class fresh in my memory, I didn't want to bake in a pan. It had to be a ciabatta
• Ciabattas have to proof right side down on a floured couche and need to be flipped floured side up for baking. The rod the surgeon put inside my arm goes from my elbow almost all the way up my hand to the beginning of my fingers. There is no way I can flip anything, not even a piece of paper. I would have to settle for proofing on parchment paper and baking wrong side up. The rod is coming out towards the end of September, so it was a temporary setback and hopefully not a major one. I decided to ignore it
• Didier had shared several marvelous formulas with us but when I do make one of them, I want to report on it on this blog, including tips, photos, videos, etc. With typing setting my hand on fire (I am writing this in bits and pieces), I knew the longer post would have to wait. I had to devise my own ciabatta
• Still of course I remembered what Didier said, how, in his own bakery, he likes to combine levain and poolish to add complexity to the dough and how much fun it was to just experiment. Taking stock of what I had at hand, I decided to go for teff, to use some whole wheat flour as well and to complement the flavor and texture with roasted sunflower seeds. I also decided to add water in two steps as he so brilliantly demonstrated
• I knew that mixing and baking the ciabatta wouldn't be fun if I had to ask for help. So I made up the one and only rule: I had to manage by myself from A to Z, including handling the oven and cleaning up (even if I had to stick everything in the dishwasher, which I did). Hence the title of this post: one-handed ciabatta

It went way more smoothly that I thought it would. Cast in the supporting role (pun intended!), my left arm rose to the occasion. Believe it or not, the hardest part was setting the camera on the tripod for the post-baking shots. The one-handed smartphone shots were no problem.
The fragrance that wafted out of the oven during the baking was pure bliss and brought back happy memories.
But it wasn't until we cut open the first ciabatta (the proportions given below yield three) and I saw the tan color of the crumb that I knew why I had picked teff out of all the grains I stock in the fridge: last summer, when Noah, his mom and his sisters came to visit at our little camp by the river, I made several loaves of teff bread with flour a former colleague had brought back from Ethiopia. Noah liked it so much that he ate almost a full loaf by himself, without butter or jam or any other kind of topping. His bright and eager expression, the sheer joy on his face as he chewed will stay with me forever.
His memory had brought me back full-circle. A circle of love. And the little flame had been rekindled.

Ingredients (for 3 ciabattas)

• 450 g unbleached all-purpose flour
• 150 g whole-wheat flour
• 150 g teff mash (75g teff flour + 75g water. See this recipe for mash explanation and how-to)
• Water 1: 350 g
• Water 2: 100 g
• 80 g sunflower seeds, toasted and briefly soaked (water from that soaking is part of water 1)
• 150 g ripe liquid levain (100% hydration)
• 150 g ripe poolish (75 g flour + 75 g water + a pinch of instant yeast)
• 18 g fine sea salt

Method (the ciabatta is made over two days)

The night before

1. Feed the levain
2. Prepare the poolish
3. Briefly dry-roast the sunflower seeds in a small frying pan

Early on the day of the bake (at least two hours before mixing begins)

Teff mash

1. Pour the boiling water over the teff flour and mix well
2. Make sure the teff flour is completely hydrated, adding a bit more water as needed
3. Set aside until mash comes to room temperature

Sunflower seeds soaker

1. Add a bit of boiling water to the roasted seeds (just enough to cover)
2. Let soak 20 minutes or so
3. Drain the seeds and save the water

Mixing

1. Pour water 1 (including sunflower seeds soaking water) in bowl of mixer
2. Add all-purpose flour, whole-wheat flour, teff mash, levain and poolish
3. Mix on low speed until incorporated
4. Add the salt
5. Mix on low speed until gluten is developed
6. Add half of water 2 and crank up speed one notch
7. Slowly add the other half of water 2
8. Mix briefly (just until the water is incorporated)
9. Bring speed back down to low and add the sunflower seeds
10. Mix until incorporated
11. Set dough to rise in oiled and covered pan

- Dough temperature was 79°F/26°C at the end of the mixing.
- Fermentation lasted six hours at 72°F/22°C, with two folds one hour apart.
- Since my broken wrist made it impossible to fold the usual way (north over south, then west over east, and flip over), I did it one-handed inside the pan, simply by picking up the edge of the dough and bringing it towards the center, making sure to go all around.
- I should point out that I chose the wrong shape of pan for fermenting the dough. Since I was making an elongated bread I should have chosen a rectangular pan instead of a square one. I will next time.

Dividing and baking

1. When dough has finished rising (when you palpate it with the tip of a finger, the indentation remains for a little while), dust the top with flour and invert the container on a floured counter top
2. Gently elongate the dough into a rectangle
3. Divide in three length-wise (there was no way I could weigh the pieces so I just eyeballed them)
4. Using the dough cutter as a lift, transfer each piece of dough to a parchment-paper covered half-sheet pan and proof, covered, for 45 minutes to 1 hour depending on room temperature
5. Meawhile pre-heat oven to 420°F/215°C
6. Slide proofed ciabattas into the oven and bake (with steam for the first five minutes) for 20 minutes before turning the oven down to 400°F/204°C
7. Continue baking for another 10 minutes (propping the door of the oven ajar with a wooden spoon for the last 5 minutes)
8. Cool on a rack
9. Enjoy!

Teff Mash Bread

Now that I know how to bake with teff, I would buy truckloads of it and make teff bread on a regular basis if it were not so expensive: not only is it very nutritious but the taste is unique and marvelous. How best to describe it for those of you who are not familiar with it? Think deeply caramelized black walnuts with a hint of raw dark cocoa and maybe, maybe a tiny whiff of the soul-warming spices used in African cooking. Think exotic, seductive and subtly addictive. Think "Wow! I can get all that flavor from just 10% of flour?" and you'll have an idea of what teff is like.

Of course the teff flour I am baking with here might taste different from the one to be found here in America but I have no way of knowing until I go home to the Northwest and actually buy a bag (as far as I know, there is none to be had for love or money where I am now). The one I have was brought to me from Ethiopia by a kindly colleague a few years ago.

I kept it in the freezer while we still lived back East and when we moved to the Northwest, since I was trying not to move everything cross-country, I brought it here to the little camp by the St-Lawrence River where we have been spending our summer vacations for the past twenty-six years.
Together with all the other grains, nuts and flours, I put it in a sturdy insect-, rodent- and waterproof trunk which weathered the winter under the cabin, sitting directly on the bedrock. Nothing like permafrost to keep everything fresh as I am sure the Native Americans who used to live here discovered ages before me.
Some people don't like teff and I suspect that is because they only ever had it in injera form at Ethiopian restaurants. Injera is traditionally made from a teff starter that is left to ferment until it is quite acidic and some cooks make it more sour than others. I love injera and Ethiopian cuisine and injera is actually what I planned to make with the teff my colleague brought me since I had never had much success with teff bread before.
I learned why at WheatStalk: teff flour has the annoying habit of first absorbing water like crazy and then of releasing it sneakily when one least wishes it to do so. The trick is therefore not to use it dry but to make a mash of it before incorporating it into a dough. Soaking it in hot water sets both the protein and the starch, making it much more stable. In the words of Frank Sally's (my instructor for the Baking with Ancient Grains lab), "baking with teff is a nightmare otherwise." Good to know!
To make a mash

1. Bring 100% water to a roiling boil
2. Pour it over 100% flour
3. Make a paste (it will be full of soft lumps)
4. Let cool
5. Add to the dough as a soaker

The mash should be made the morning of the mix. According to my instructor at WheatStalk, if you'd rather do it the day before, you need to make it, let it cool and then add it to your levain build.

For this bread, I didn't want to use a WheatStalk formula: there might be copyright issues (I need to check into that) and anyway I didn't have the necessary ingredients. So I made up my own recipe with what I had on hand here at camp and as you'll see, it is fairly minimalistic. If you have all-purpose flour, a mature starter and a bit of teff flour, you are all set to go.

Ingredients: (for four loaves)

• 890 g unbleached all-purpose flour
• 200 g teff mash (100 g teff flour + 100 g hot water)
• 555 g more water at warmish room temperature (or more or less according to the flours you use. Even if they are the same brand, they will always be different from mine. The consistency of your dough will always be a better guide than the amount of water used by the author of any recipe)
• 535 g liquid starter @ 100% hydration (mine is currently fed with 40% whole grain - wheat, spelt and rye - but a white one -or better yet, a teff one - would work fine)
• 27 g salt

Method: (This bread is made over two days. The dough was hand-mixed.)

1. Make the teff mash using the method described above
2. Mix all the other ingredients* (I used only 450 g water to start with) until incorporated and add the teff mash when lukewarm (I have developed a method for adding water which is really no-hassle: I first put in as much as needed to hydrate the flour, then I pour the rest (in this case, 105 g) into a spray-bottle and I spray the dough as I go, making sure to spray after each fold just before covering the bowl. The dough acts like a sponge as it relaxes and absorbs the water with minimal work on my part. Not that I don't love folding the dough over and over. I actually do but my wrists have apparently remained French-ier than the rest of me:  they tend to go on strike at the drop of a hat...)
3. Fold resulting dough onto itself several times, cover and let rest for 30 minutes
4. Repeat three times at 30-minute intervals (more if necessary, judging from the dough consistency)
5. Let ferment, covered, for another hour 
6. Then refrigerate for 12 to 16 hours (make sure your fridge isn't set on super cold)
7. The day after, bring back to room temperature
8. Turn on the oven to 475°F/246°C, making sure your baking stone is in it as well as a metal dish for steaming
9. Transfer to a flour-dusted worktable
10. Divide @ about 500 g, trying to keep the pieces as square as possible
11. Shape (no pre-shaping) by pulling each piece of dough upwards (from the upper long side) then folding it upon itself once and closing the seam
12. Transfer seam-side down to a sheet pan lined with semolina-dusted parchment paper
13. Proof for one hour
14. Dust with flour if desired and score shallowly down the middle holding the lame at an angle
15. Bake with steam for 5 minutes at 475°F/246°C, then turn the oven temperature down to 450°F/232°C and bake another 35 to 40 minutes (the oven is old and quirky in this little cabin and I always turn the loaves 180° for the last ten minutes of baking)
16. Cool on a rack
17. Enjoy!

*When mixing by hand here at camp, I often skip the autolyse. I  mix flour + salt + liquid levain + the bulk of the water until everything is hydrated, then I cover the bowl and let the dough rest anywhere from 20 minutes to half-an-hour before proceeding with the recipe from step 3 on. It is much easier on the wrists (less folding) and it yields excellent results. Of course it may have to do with the temperature and humidity which are both in the high range here in the summer. Back home in the cool Pacific Northwest, I'll  probably need to hold the salt back until the end. I'll still add in the levain with the water and the flour but I may experiment with much longer resting times (if you interested in fiddling with autolyse, you may want to read Teresa Greenway's excellent posts on the subject: Experimenting with Autolyse #1 and Experimenting with Autolyse #2).

The Teff Mash Bread is going to Susan for this week's issue of Yeastspotting. Thank you, Susan!