Loaf 71 – Cinnamon Brown Sugar Ciabatta
It’s been about two weeks since my baking binge in Boulder. My two-pass tri-fold approach on the ciabatta bread gave me an idea for a breakfast bread. I decided to try folding cinnamon, brown sugar and raisins into the bread for sweet bread.
Sarah isn’t a big fan of raisins, so I made two loaves – one with raisins and dried cranberries, and one without.
To create the filling for the two 600g loaves I mixed 80g of brown sugar and 10g of cinnamon. (There was a bit too much cinnamon, I’d use about 7g next time.) The total amount can be reduced from 90g to about 66g – the total amount I actually used on the two loaves. I also soaked 75g of raisins and dried cranberries in water for about an hour to rehydrate them.
I followed the same Reinhart recipe as my other loaves until it came time to shape the loaves. I stretched the dough out to rectangles as is normal and spread on half the filling.
First pass layered with brown sugar, cinnamon, raisins and cranberries.
I then did a tri-fold, like you would a letter, and left them seam side down to proof for an hour. After the rest, I stretched the loaves out just enough to make a rectangle again, and added another layer of filling. I then did another tri-fold and let it rest seam side up this time.
Second pass tri-folds done.
After another hour of proofing, I flipped them over and baked in the oven. The results were nice and quite decadent, but I don’t think ciabatta is the right choice for this type of bread. The highly open crumb that is typical of ciabatta isn’t the best structure for holding all the filling. Bites of bread tended to be either all bread or all filling – a denser crumb would balance out better.
That said, we did something really outrageous that night by using the bread for pulled pork sandwiches. The sauce in the pulled pork already had lots of brown sugar or honey in it, so having it in the bread was just a logical extension. After downing the sandwiches we felt like we had already had dessert, too.
Pulled pork sandwich on cinnamon/brown sugar ciabatta bread. Egads.
That was pretty nuts. Lots of fun to try, and great for the sweet tooth, but I don’t think I’ll be doing this one again.
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- Nice dough after a night in the fridge.
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- Beautiful bubbles.
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- Dough divided for two loaves.
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- First pass layered with brown sugar, cinnamon, raisins and cranberries.
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- Tri-fold done.
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- Both loaves folded, ready to proof.
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- Both loaves after first proofing.
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- Second pass: layered goodness.
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- Second pass tri-folds done.
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- After second proofing. Rather large.
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- Ready to bake.
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- Also ready to bake.
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- Baked loaves.
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- Inside the loaves.
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- Close up of non-raisin loaf.
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- Pulled pork sandwich on cinnamon/brown sugar ciabatta bread. Egads.
