In article >,
"Bob Benton" > wrote:

> I used a new recipe to bake my first loaf of ciabatta in months. All went
> seemingly well and it rose nicely in the oven but when I cut into it there
> was a single, huge void running along almost the entire upper half of the
> loaf. What I want, of course, is a nice, open-textured ciabatta, with
> something like a third to a half of the loaf consisting of
> pea-to-marble-sized voids evenly disbursed throughout. You know, like what
> you buy in the store. I've had the same problem once or twice with plain
> French bread as well. What causes this?


I was just wondering about this myself. I made pain levain the other
day and ended up with lots of regular size, desirable holes but one BIG
hole along the top where the "spine" would be if a long loaf of bread
had a spine.

I think that I've lost something I once knew about forming the loaves.
Or I'm not pressing down the dough enough when folding it so it's got
some air pocket in it.

I hope other people have ideas about this. The bread was very tasty,
but it would be hard to use for say, tuna sandwiches! :-)

--
Mary Beth
Orientation::Quilter
http://www.quiltr.com
http://www.fruitcakesociety.org
http://homepage.mac.com/mbgoodman/bread05/