Ciabatta Breadsticks

A few months ago, Jack Sturgess mentioned that a breadstick challenge stumped most of the British Bake Off contestants. I happened to be making a batch of ciabatta at the time, so I thought, why not dedicate some of the dough to breadsticks. The results were pretty good and we love a crunchy snack with our nightly glass or two of wine. Anyway, after 4 passes, I think I finally have a repeatable process that produces attractive, munchable grissini.

Several weeks after starting this journey, I watched the Bake Off challenge show and saw, to my horror, an assignment that resulted in these massive cheese and olive loafs more on the order of a ficelle or even a baguette. The winner did a passable job on a ludicrous assignment. I'm glad to have been inspired by Jack's mention and happy to have missed the initial broadcast which probably would have put me off my feed enough to never look into how to make decent breadsticks.

So…I mixed up a 2 kilo batch of my 50% Durum ciabatta recipe based on the Community Bake and Alfanso's helpful process. Then while my formed ciabatta were rising on the counter, I chopped a kilo of dough into maybe 50 20g batons. The 80% hydration dough is very sticky, so I've started rolling the batons in semolina before stretching them to half-sheet pan length. You fight the gluten a bit, but I've found that leaving one pan of partially stretched batons to rest while I fill another pan, I'm able to return to the initial batch and get a bit more length on the shorter sticks. I proof them at 80-85 dF for up to an hour depending on how many batches I need to bake. Before baking, I spray the shaped sticks with water and dust with Maldon salt and coarsely ground pepper. Have made versions with rosemary or Parmigiana incorporated into dough during the final mix. Definitely going to stay in my repertoire.

 Phil