To make ciabatta, you have to have a stand mixer...right? Not according to this 20-year-old recipe from the New York Times.
I'm not sure what combination of searches and click-throughs led me to this page, but suddenly I found myself looking at a 1992 recipe from Florence Fabricant in which she insisted that ciabatta could be made in the food processor. We just need to replace the processor's metal slicing blade with its plastic "dough blade." The powerful food processor motor is more than enough to whip the batter-like ciabatta dough into submission.
I discovered another gem when searching for Florence Fabricant's original 1992 article: a second New York Times recipe for ciabatta that requires no machinery at all. In this recipe, published just two years ago, a series of gentle folds as the dough is rising builds the structure of the ciabatta. The method looks labor-intensive, but very doable.
I can't wait to give these recipes a try and see how they stack up against my favorite stand-mixer recipe:
• Food-Processor Ciabatta by Florence Fabricant from The New York Times • The Bread Baker's Apprentice: Ciabatta by Emily Weinstein from The New York Times
Have you had success making ciabatta without a stand mixer?
Related: Top Ten Ways to Use Your Food Processor
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Yikes. I guess 1992 really WAS 20 years ago!
Well, people were making ciabatta long before stand mixers or food processors were around, so this makes sense....
@Tatterhood, I was about to say the *exact* same thing. Yikes, indeed!
My go to recipe was in Country Living in Feb 2001! It called for a bowl or a food processor, therefore, no stand mixer. I loved ciabatta, and was excited to get a recipe. It was a revelation to find how out how wet the dough was. I don't think even a food processor is needed, it's that wet. The other important part was making the biga the night before, which develops the flavor.
Since then I've used Artisan Bread in Five Minutes A Day, which develops incredible flavor.
I have a personal policy when it comes to baking cookbooks. If it mentions a stand mixer and doesn't provide alternative directions, it does not come home with me. Not even from the library.
People baked just fine before electricity was in every home.
Uh, you know you don't really need specific direction to make any bread recipe by hand. The most important part is knowing the correct 'feel' or texture of the dough when it is fully kneaded and/or developed and when it has risen - things you should know for any recipe, for mixer or by hand.
The tools make the work easier, but the knowledge is still required. Which is not to say that bread making is difficult.