Quick and Easy Organic Ciabatta Bread

(Ciabatta)

This is a recipe that was originally posted on PeasePudding Blog. My girlfriend tried it first and claimed it worked beautifully. I decided to give it a try even though the kneading method looked nothing like kneading! This bread has become a staple in my house for over a year now. We eat it with Italian dishes, like lasagna, as toast, and even as sandwich bread.

Ingredients:
2 cups organic white wheat flour
2 cups organic all purpose flour
(NOTE: for absolutely delicious bread, feel free to use organic all purpose flour for the entire recipe)
1/2 tsp organic sugar
1.5 tsp dry yeast
1.5 tsp salt
2 cups luke warm water

 Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees with your baking stone in it (if you don't have a baking stone, use a non-airbake rimmed cookie sheet that's coated with parchment paper).
2. In a very large bowl, stir together the flour, sugar, and yeast.
3. Add the water.
4. Add the salt.
5. Mix together the batter. It should resemble thick pancake batter. Add more water or flour to make it this consistency.
6. Begin "beating" the dough. To do this, lift up part of the dough with your hand to stretch it up hight, and then slap it back down onto the rest of the dough. Do this for about 5 to 10 minutes, or until all the lumps are out of the dough and it seems elastic. You'll probably need to scrape down the sides of the bowl a few times.
7. Let the dough rise in the same bowl that you've been beating it in. To rise, drizzle olive oil on top of it so that the top is fairly covered. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap.
8. Allow to rise until it is doubled in sized, about an hour.
9. Flour your clean counter very, very well. Without punching the dough down, pour the dough onto the floured counter. The objective is to keep as much air in the dough as possible.
10. Fold the dough over onto itself, sort of like you're making an envelope.
11. Take the baking stone out of the oven, and set it nearby your workspace.
12. Hold your tongue just right to pick up the dough and get it to the stone!
13. Bake 30-40 minutes, until it's golden brown and sounds hollow when tapped.