Week3 January Challenge

Good morning, bakers. Today’s Ciabatta Bake is happening, and I just posted the recipe above. If you’re baking along and run into questions, weird dough behavior, timing issues, or just want a second set of eyes, leave it right here in this thread. Recipe: https://pantry.bakinggreatbread.com/recipes/quick-ciabatta?utm_source=skool&utm_medium=community&utm_campaign=recipe-share This will be our working chat for the day so everyone can see the questions and the fixes in real time. I’ll be checking in all day. If it makes sense later, I may pop open a short live, but for now this is home base. Let’s bake.

Quick check-in. Where are you at for tomorrow's bake? Drop a comment if you have questions before tomorrow. I'll be here all day to walk you through it.

You’ve had a jar of instant yeast in the fridge for a little while… and you want to bake. How do you know if it’s still active? Here’s the answer….. To check if instant yeast is still good, perform a quick "proofing" test: mix 1 teaspoon of yeast with 1 tablespoon of warm water (around 100°F) and a pinch of sugar; if it becomes foamy, bubbly, and forms a dome within 5-10 minutes, it's active and good to use, but if nothing happens, the yeast is dead and should be tossed.

Another first for me this week, Sourdough Grissini. I had no idea what these were, so when I “googled” for a recipe, I literally searched for sourdough jalapeño cheddar thin crispy breadsticks. Thankfully, Mr. Google knew what I meant to ask for, and now I have Sourdough Jalapeño Cheddar Grissini to take to a chili cookoff I’m judging this evening. I used unfed starter since I didn’t want them to puff up too much.