Cookaholics Bulletin Board

Costco stores make an excellent Ciabatta, however, a two-pack is just too much bread and it's difficult to keep well even with freezing then Foodsavering.
Anyone have a good recipe for a nice Italian loaf?
I've looked over KAF's recipes and they have a couple that could work.

It's funny that you bring this up Linda, I'm sitting at the table looking at my very dusty copy of "The Bread Baker's Apprentice", and thinking its time to start working on making some breads. I have not made the Italian bread in this book, but the book has been highly recommended by many people. I am not a very experienced bread maker, but this source seems like the real deal to me.

Let me know if you would like the instructions.

Karen

Thanks, Karen. I actually have that book, I don't know why it didn't occur to me to look there but I'll definitely give it a look.

When I want to bake Italian bread I bypass a whole shelf of bread cookbooks and keep going back to a trio of Cook's Illustrated recipes...
Rustic Italian Bread from 2003
Ciabatta from 2009
Rosemary Focaccia from 2010

I can vouch for the Bread Baker's Apprentice loaf.

Thanks, Jim. I don't know why I didn't think of CI but they seemed to have gotten away from bread making in the last few years. I'll definitely give these a try.

Linda - there is a thread here (somewhere re: ciabatta) but if you are interested I have the Ponsford recipe and the recipe used by Team USA in the ciabatta championship competition. PM me and I will send them along.

Last September CI did Authentic Baguettes at Home that has nearly persuaded me to try baguettes one more time. I have never been completely satisfied with any baguette I have made.

This month's "bread" offering is , Thick-Crust Sicilian-Style Pizza. The crust includes a bit more than 50% semolina flour. I picked up some of Bobs Red Mill Semolina flour the other day and have the pizza on my menu for later in the week.

Ponsford's recipe is interesting. Includes procedure for "measuring" 1/384 teaspoon of yeast for the biga, but offers no guidance about the weight of flour. I played with it for a couple of years and it can make wonderful bread, but I moved on to more precise recipes that are just as tasty when the whole world of artisan bread moved on to multi day ferments and folding to develop gluten in very slack dough.

Not a recipe, but at my Costco I can buy the bread they bake on site, it's par-baked and available from the bakery staff at anywhere from 40-70% less than the baked ones. I always have a box in my freezer and fresh bread is never more than 10 minutes away.
Just a thought if you have a big freezer. I sometimes split a box with a friend.

Since I got my 7 qt. mixer, I've been making bread once a week using recipes from the KAF site. I've been making mostly "healthier" breads (Old Fashioned Oatmeal was this week's), but baguettes and ciabatta are next on the list. Since they've all turned out well, I'm going to try their version. I am not fantastic at shaping bread, so all the ones I've made so far have been in various size loaf pans and bakers. There is a post today in the Culinary thread on Facebook about baguettes. I had copied that recipe to my LC so it's in queue. Having said that, I've made Ponsford's ciabatta and it was great.

BTW, if you want a super easy loaf, make Cuban bread. It freezes wonderfully.