Ciabatta Bread

I may have mentioned once or twice or a million times how much I love bread. I may have even reminded you all about it a couple billion times already. I've been slowly tackling recipes in The Bread Baker's Apprentice, Mastering the Art of Extraordinary Bread by Peter Reinhart, which by the way, not only contains excellent edibles, but it is an excellent read with tons of background and everything most of us need to know about the who, what, where, why, and how's of bread.

So I chose a Ciabatta bread, biga version. Why did I choose a biga rather than a poolish? A simple flip of a coin. That's how most important decisions (like what to have for dinner) are made here. Until I read this book, I had no clue what the heck a biga and poolish was. Sure I heard of them, but I usually just ignored it and carried on with something else. Cause that's how I roll.

Basically a poolish and biga are a couple of basic versions of pre-ferments. You know when you need to make a 'starter' the day before actually making your bread? That's that. Don't be scared of breads with pre-ferments. Sure, it might take a little longer (not too much more hands on time), but you'll be amazed at how deep the flavor it brings to the bread. Plus, you know it's gonna be good when your house smells like bread BEFORE you bake anything.

Mmmm....

So I ate one loaf for dinner and froze the other two, just to insure that I wouldn't consume almost 5 cups of flour worth of bread (plus butter!), in less than 24 hours.

And there's part of me that could still find a way to justify it.