I tried baking my high hydration ciabatta dough in my new bannetons.
It was a fiddly process – the ciabatta dough was almost too wet to shape – but the end result was quite pleasing nonetheless. I rose both loaves in my oval bannetons, and slashed one with three long vertical cuts, and the other with diagonal horizontal slashes.
The dough stuck a little to the cane baskets – I suspect I’ve reached the maximum hydration that I can prove in the bannetons – but the excess brushed off quite easily.
I managed to get a crumb shot this time before the wolves descended!
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My lovely friend Joanna recently posted her recipe for 100% Russian rye sourdough loaves.
Both the recipe and the process were intriguing – the dough is mixed in two stages without kneading, and then left to rise for an extended time.
I didn’t bother bulk proving the dough, and instead scraped the batter into two long loaf tins as soon as it was mixed. These were covered and then left to rise on top of the fish tank for about seven hours, until the dough appeared over-inflated and on the verge of collapse.
After baking, we wrapped the loaves in paper and left them overnight (as instructed). They were quite nice the following day, and delicious the day after that – the crumb softened and the flavour developed as the loaves matured.
It’s a tasty and very interesting bread to bake, especially if you’re partial to rye loaves. Joanna’s original post is here!
Edit: here’s a photo of the risen, unbaked rye loaf – as you can see, it really didn’t rise at all after it went in the oven. Having said that, several hours before this photo, it was only an inch high in the pan.
Fig Jam and Lime Cordial 