Sourdough Diaries: Whole Wheat Ciabatta Rolls
Ciabatta is an airy bread that I always enjoy as a sandwich bread or a flavorful dinner roll. In curiosity, I wondered if I could make sourdough ciabatta rolls, and I could! The high-hydration dough has an interesting, slinky texture. If you go in with wet hands, this dough doesn’t make a mess or stick to your fingers when doing the stretch and folds. Also, I like to let my dough cold ferment for longer than my Rye Sourdough recipe, because I love a more complex, “sour” flavor with this light bread. As with many of my baking recipes, I kept my recipes vegan and used a whole grain flour blend to make the bread more nutritious.
What You Might Need:
Bench Scraper
Baking Tray
Mixing bowl with lid
Corn meal
Rubber spatula
Glass Jars for Sourdough Starter
Rubber Bands or hair ties to mark the starter growth
Food Scale
Ingredients:
100 g active starter
400 g water
300 g bread flour
200 g whole wheat or rye flour
10 g salt
Instructions:
Mix the dough
Add the active sourdough starter and water together and mix until combined.
Add flour and salt.
Fold flour into the starter liquid. This doesn’t have to be perfect as this dough will sit an hour to become fully hydrated.
Let rise and fully hydrate for one hour.
This dough should be on the wet side, similar to a foccacia dough. See the reference video for an idea of the texture.
Stretch and Folds
After that hour, start the strectch and folds. Compelete 4 rounds of Stretch and Folds, roughly 30 minutes apart.
Stretch and folds develop the protiens and gluten in the dough, giving it a great bready texture.
In one round of stretch and folds, I think of the dough as having four quarters, and stretch each, upwards then over to opposite side.
To do a stretch and fold, first wet your hands so the dough doesn’t stick too much. Grab the one edge of the dough and stretch gently upwards without breaking it. The dough will gain elasticy with each round, but the first round will require a little more gentlness. If you do accidentally tear the dough, just tuck it back together.
To “fold” tuck the end of the stretch dough in your hand to the opposite side of the dough ball. rotate the bowl and start stretching the next quarter of the dough.
First Ferment
Let rise, at around 75 degrees for 3-6 hours until flour doubles
This time varies based on the weather and your home temperature. I normally do 6 hours, where it sits in my mirowave, or on my counter. You want your dough to visably double.
Second (Cold) Ferment
Place in the fride for 8-36 hours. ( I usually cold ferment overnight and a day, and bake in the evening )
Although some consider the cold ferment optional, I would say it is crucial for flavor development. If you like your sourdough extra sour, leave it in closer to 24-36 hours. For a full flavor, let it ferment 8-10 hours overnight.
Remove from Fridge
Flour your working surface generously.
Turn dough out onto your working surface.
Flour the top of the dough.
Shape gently into an approximate rectangle
Use sharp knife or bench scraper to cut dough into 8 (or more) pieces.
If you are not baking on fully non-stick baking dishes, you will need to either oil your baking dish, add a generous amount of cornmeal to the bottom.
Add Rolls to tray and let them rise on the counter again for another 2 hours until slightly puffy.
When you have about 15 minutes left for your rise, Preheat your oven to 475 degrees farenheight.
Bake at 475 degrees for 10 minutes.
Afterwards, Turn down oven to 425 and bake another 20 minutes.
Cool for 30 minutes before slicing.