Easy Ciabatta Roll Recipe (2024)

If you’re looking for the perfect sandwich roll, or a baguette, this easy ciabatta roll recipe is perfect!

Over time, the ciabatta bread has become an iconic bread that can be found all over the world.

Baked by Francesco Favaron, it’s usually used as a base for sandwiches or as a side dish for Italian meals.

Ciabatta doesn’t just come in loaves, it also comes in different types of bread, like ciabatta buns, ciabatta garlic bread, ciabatta with stiff dough/biga, and ciabatta rolls that are quite shorter as compared to loaves, but still taste as good.

Ciabatta, an Italian white bread made with yeast and wheat flour has been popular in Europe and the United States since the late 1990s.

Because of its form and shape, the word’s literal translation is a slipper.

A loaf of ciabatta is elongated, broad, and flattish in shape, with big bubbles in the center.

It should also be collapsed in the middle, just like the insides of a slipper.

These appear because of its high hydration dough which can make it quite hard to work with and shape.

There are different recipes to enjoy homemade ciabatta bread.

Enjoy these ciabatta bread recipes and see how you can make such a great recipe for a perfect bread with cheap and basic ingredients you can easily find at home!

Authentic Ciabatta Roll Recipe

The main difference between Ciabatta bread from traditional Italian bread is that its wet dough is much wetter as compared to the regular bread.

Its French counterpart is the famous—French baguette. Others like to call it the French ciabatta, too.

The Ciabatta dough is a very wet dough, and this gives it its uniqueness, along with its flavor.

Preparing a loaf of bread is a lot of work, and preparing the ciabatta bread dough is no exception to that.

This ciabatta recipe promises you fresh bread with a great crust.

Let’s go see how you can make your own homemade bread with this recipe.

Ingredients:

for the biga

• 1 cup, 6tbsp of bread flour—can be substituted with all-purpose flour
• ½ cup, 1 tbsp of water—room temperature
• a pinch of Red Star yeast platinum—quick rise/active dry yeast/instant yeast

for the final dough

• the biga
• ¾ cup, 2 tsp of water—room temperature
• 2 cups, 1 ½ tbsp of bread flour
• 1 tsp of Red Star yeast platinum—quick rise/active dry yeast/instant yeast
• 1 teaspoon of salt
• cornmeal or semolina for dusting

Instructions:

1. As I mentioned earlier, bread prep takes a lot of time. To start, 12 to 24 hours before baking your ciabatta, let’s make the biga. It’s an Italian style of preference. Combine ingredients for the biga (cups of flour, water, and yeast) in a large bowl, and whisk to combine. Cover bowl with plastic wrap, and set aside for 12 to 24 hours at room temperature. This is for an overnight starter.

2. Next, let’s go combine the dough.
   1. In the same bowl of the biga, combine the remaining ingredients for the ciabatta dough. Stir with a wooden spoon until it is well mixed.
   2. For ease, you can use an electric mixer, or you can use the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with a paddle attachment as your mixing bowl to make things easier. When using a stand mixer, mix at low speed until all the flour has moistened, then increase speed to medium-low or medium speed. Do this until a mass forms, and the dough pulls away easily from the sides of the bowl.
   3. When using a bread machine, place all ingredients into the pan, and select the dough cycle, and start.
   4. Switch to the dough hook attachment and mix on low speed until the dough is smooth and shiny. At first, it will feel like there is not enough liquid, but when it gets worked together, it becomes a very wet and sticky dough.
   5. To hydrate all the flour, you may want to use your hands and knead it gently.
   6. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and let it rest at room temperature for 45 minutes until all of the flour has been hydrated with no dry spots.

3. Once the dough has rested, the next thing is to stretch and fold thrice. This folding method serves a huge role in the success of this bread recipe.
   1. With the dough already in the bowl, gently dampen your hands with a little water and pull on one side of the dough, stretching it real nice, and then folding it back over the top of the dough. Wet hands are best for this task to stop the dough from sticking to your hands.
   2. Turn the bowl 90 degrees and repeat on the other side of the bowl. Repeat this until all four sides have been stretched. Cover the bowl and set aside for another 45 minutes.
   3. Stretch and fold for a second and third time, letting it rest for 45 minutes for every round.
   4. This series of brief stretches typically takes up to three hours from the time the dough is mixed to the time it’s ready for molding.
   5. Note: Other recipes use a large bowl that’s been greased with olive oil and let the dough sit and rise for 1 hour before stretching and folding it.

4. Next, let’s get everything else up and ready.
   1. Prepare your pans and oven during the final resting period. An oven rack should be placed at the bottom of the oven, and the other should be placed in the center. On the bottom rack, place a cast iron skillet or another skillet. On the middle rack, place a baking stone, baking steel, baking tray, or baking sheet pan flipped upside down.
   2. Preheat oven to 450 degrees F. The oven and the pans can be preheated for at least an hour before the bread gets inside the oven. Line a pizza peel or a rimless sheet pan with parchment paper that’s been finely dusted with cornmeal or semolina.

5. While everything else is being preheated, let’s shape the dough.
   1. Place dough. Turn dough nicely on a work surface with not much flour. Expect it to be dripping and sticky. So, scrape dough out of the bowl with a damp dough scraper or pizza wheel. Separate the dough into two halves. Then, dampen your hands again, and pick a piece of dough, and transfer dough into the parchment paper prepared.
   2. Form a flat rectangle shape with the dough. Do this by stretching the dough and patting. Expect it to be really sticky. The best way to shape the dough is to do it with wet hands, so sprinkle a little bit of lukewarm water onto your hands before doing this. We are aiming for rustic bread, so a rustic look isn’t so bad. Keep on doing this for the second dough. If you feel like going for a loaf of bread, you can just shape all the dough into one big loaf.

6. Next, we wait and let the dough rise. Sprinkle the top of the loaf with flour, then cover with a floured towel or a really clean kitchen towel. Allow it to rise for an hour.

7. Once the dough has risen, the next step is to bake!
   1. Fill a small bowl with around 2 cups of ice cubes. When moving the ciabatta, move quickly and carefully.
   2. Open the oven door and carefully take the parchment paper with the ciabatta to the preheated baking stone, pizza stone, or sheet pan.
   3. Pour the ice cubes into the skillet as quickly as possible, and close the oven door.
   4. Bake for 30-35 minutes, or once the loaves are golden brown, and hollow when tapped.
8. Let the ciabatta cool down before you slice. Their flavor will be fully developed as a result.

9. Spraying the loaves produces steam in the oven, which helps add a crisp crust to the bread. Try doing this the next time you bake if you love bread with a crispy crust.

Homemade Italian bread is best eaten on the same day it came from the oven.

Serve it with olive oil and balsamic vinegar, or soup.

The bread can still be eaten on the next day, but the bread has to be wrapped in aluminum foil after it has cooled down on its first day.

Preparing ciabatta does entail a lot of work, but the end result will always be rewarding.