Ciabatta

Ciabatta

Type	Bread flour
Place of origin	Italy
Region or state	Veneto
Main ingredients	Wheat flour or whole wheat flour, yeast
Cookbook: Ciabatta   Media: Ciabatta

Ciabatta (Italian pronunciation: [tʃaˈbatta], literally slipper bread) is an Italian white bread made from wheat flour, water, salt, olive oil, and yeast, created in 1982 by a baker in Adria, Veneto, Italy, in response to popularity of French baguettes. Ciabatta is somewhat elongated, broad, and flat, and is baked in many variations.

While panino indicates any kind of sandwich regardless of the bread used (whether slices or a bun), a toasted sandwich made from small loaves of ciabatta is specifically known as a panini (plural of panino) outside of Italy.

Italy

Ciabatta was first produced in 1982 by Arnaldo Cavallari, a baker and miller from Adria, a small town close to Venice in Veneto.

Cavallari called the bread ciabatta Polesano after Polesine, the area he lived in, and registered it as a trademark. The recipe was subsequently licensed by Cavallari's company, Molini Adriesi, to bakers in 11 countries by 1999.

Many regions have their own variations on the original recipe or a bread that closely resembles ciabatta and has become accepted as a variety of ciabatta; the ciabatta from the area encompassing Lake Como has a crisp crust, a somewhat soft, porous texture, and is light to the touch.

The ciabatta found in Tuscany, Umbria, and Marche varies from bread that has a firm crust and dense crumb, to bread that has a crisper crust and more open texture, and in Rome, it is often seasoned with marjoram.

New variations of the recipe continue to be developed. Wholemeal ciabatta are known as ciabatta integrale, and when milk is added to the dough, it becomes ciabatta al latte.

Francesco Favaron of Pan Technology maintains that he personally invented this bread. Pan Technology is a private school devoted to bread, pizza, and pastry, that is located in the Veneto region of Italy. Mr. Favaron states that he developed ciabatta in the 1960s by experimenting for two years when working in the city of Milan. The manual produced by Pan Technology includes 1028 formulae for Italian regional breads, one of which, it is claimed, is the "original" ciabatta formula. Cavallari and other bakers in Italy were concerned by the popularity of sandwiches made from baguettes imported from France, which were endangering their businesses and so set about trying to create an Italian alternative with which to make sandwiches. The recipe for ciabatta came about after several weeks trying variations of traditional bread recipes and consists of a soft, wet dough made with high gluten flour.

Other countries

Ciabatta bread was introduced to the United Kingdom in 1985 by Marks & Spencer, then brought to the US in 1987 by Orlando Bakery, a Cleveland firm. They brought over three bakers from Italy to develop the product and adapt it to mass production. They successfully introduced a fresh bread, then later, a frozen version. It was quickly copied throughout the United States and became widely available in Australia around this time, due to the large Italian Australian population.

The more open-crumbed form, which is usual in the United States, is made from a very wet dough, often requiring machine-kneading, and a biga or sourdough starter.

Gallery

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  A half-sized ciabatta
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  Beef pastrami served in ciabatta
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  Submarine sandwich based on a ciabatta
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  Ciabatta with black olives

External links

• BBC Food Recipe Ciabatta
• Ciabatta bread recipe in HD video (English)