Rustic Italian Ciabatta
📖 She Dropped The Dough On The Way To The Oven
@Priscilla Fuesting had never made a yeasted ciabatta before. She mixed her poolish after dinner Friday night, set the bowl on the counter, moved it around to make sure everything was just right, and went to bed. Saturday morning she came back to it ready. She did the folds. She watched the dough work. And then, on the way to the oven, she dropped it.
Most people would've called it a day. @Priscilla picked it up, decided to keep going, and put it in the oven anyway. Sunday morning she posted the crumb. It had bubbles. Her caption could've been the whole week's tagline:
I wrote back: "Priscilla, first ever yeasted ciabatta and you noticed the folds working. That's the eye of a baker, not a beginner."
She replied: "You are so kind to me."
That whole exchange happened in under an hour, between two people who'd never spoken before this week. That's what this community is for. Not the clean shape. Not the picture-perfect crumb. The fact that a brand-new baker dropped her first attempt on the kitchen floor, kept going anyway, and somebody on the other side of the world was there to see it. If you want to know what Rustic Italian Ciabatta Saturday was about, start there.
Babka was about control. Marbled loaf was about control.
Ciabatta was the opposite.
The room had to let go of the steering wheel — and you took it.
📅 The Week Before Saturday
Six days out, the announcement post went up and pulled 31 likes and 491 comments on its own. That's a complete community event before anyone touched flour. From there the runway rolled out like a coach handing out the playbook one page at a time.
Setting the table. "Hydration Confidence" video premiered (24 likes, 33 comments). Then "What Confidence Looks Like," with @Trevor Wilson's hands working an 80% dough on camera (15 likes, 7 comments). Trevor's hands were the visual proof, before any of you mixed your own. "What's a Couche, And Do You Actually Need One?" answered the question half the room was secretly asking with a one-word answer (18 likes, 16 comments). Short answer: no. Then "If This Doesn't Get You Excited About Making Ciabatta This Weekend," the breakfast-sandwich-for-dinner post that had everyone planning their Saturday lunch (30 likes, 76 comments).
The poolish-mixing party. "Tomorrow Is Ciabatta Day, And Tonight Is Prep Night" landed Friday and ran to 148 comments, almost all of it bakers checking in with their poolish photos in real time. That post was the night before the game when the locker room is half full and everyone's already thinking about the morning. The Coil Fold Demo went up the same day (18 likes, 11 comments) so anyone running their first high-hydration dough had the technique pre-loaded.
Then late Friday, the post that hit a nerve. "Quick Story Before Bed." I told the room about the bake where I was convinced I'd ruined the dough at 80% hydration and then watched the loaf come out of the oven anyway. 20 likes, 99 comments. Half the room replied "me too." That was the permission slip. If the coach was scared of this dough at one point and lived through it, you could be scared of it and live through it too.
By the time the working thread opened Saturday morning, the community had been thinking about ciabatta for a full week. The fear had a name. The technique had been pre-taught. The only question left was whether you'd actually do it.
🍞 Game Day
@Deborah Karaban kicked the working thread open before the rest of the country had coffee poured. "Good Morning Henry and my other fellow bakers. It's cofffffeeeee time." @Sandy Chong answered her almost immediately. From that exchange forward, Sandy didn't stop. She replied to almost everyone she scrolled past, all day, into the evening. The leaderboard says she earned +2,719 points this week. The leaderboard understates what she actually did.
Some of you had been at it before Saturday even arrived. @Tracy Havlik knew she'd be out most of Saturday, so she ran her Rustic Sourdough Italian Ciabatta on Friday and posted it ahead of the bake with a caption that doubled as encouragement for everyone behind her: "If this can ease anyone's mind or apprehension about the high hydration or recipe." Twelve likes, 24 comments. A bake-along veteran clearing the runway for the nervous first-timers.
@Ehsan Omara ran two loaves at 50/50 wholemeal at 83% hydration with a one-hour autolyse, because Ehsan always pushes past the brief. Eleven likes and 8 comments of bakers asking him how he did it.
The morning belonged to the early birds. @Donna Angelo, @Candi Brown-McGriff, @Ann Snow, @Patt Stanaway, @JoAnn Amato, and @Mauvette Bailey were all in the thread before the day was warm. @Michele Nilson and @Joseph Bilodeau kept the steady pace through the middle. By the afternoon, @Heather Lattanzio, @Chris Pallister, @Susie Kendall, @Stacey Avraham, @Andrea Walker, and @Angela Sides-McKay were all running their own doughs and asking the questions everyone else was thinking.
My coaching had a rhythm to it Saturday. "Remember lots of steam in the oven." That phrase appeared in my replies at least a dozen times. By dinner it had become a chant. @Patt Stanaway was liking comments where I said it just to keep it going. @Sandy Chong was quoting it back to other bakers by sundown.
The teaching moments were everywhere. @Andrea Walker came in early with the line that became the week's theme: "That one scares me to death." She named what almost everyone else was quietly thinking. By Sunday morning Andrea had baked. Same with @Robert Caldas, who tapped out and said he'd try this again in a simpler form. He'll be back. That instinct to step away and come back is the start of a baker, not the end of one.
@Cheryl Odden hit the moment that mattered most for new sourdough bakers. Watching her own dough come together through the first set of coil folds, she wrote about "the transformation that begins with the first set of coils." That's the sentence that should be pinned to the wall of every kitchen on the day someone learns high hydration. Slack soup becomes real dough in about thirty minutes if you do nothing wrong. @Cheryl named it before the rest of us realized that's what we were watching.
🌀 The Riffs
Then the rebellion. Nobody told them to, but the room started rewriting the recipe Saturday morning.
@Kathee Judd took the bake-along formula and turned it into Sourdough Ciabatta seeded rolls. She tagged me directly. "Verdict: delicious to the palate." Seven likes, 18 comments, plus a koala and kangaroo from her corner of Australia. She also fought a downed Telstra tower most of the morning trying to upload the photos. The roll-shape decision was smart: smaller forms prove faster, more crust per bite. That's a baker who's stopped following a recipe and started thinking with it.
@Ann Snow ran a sourdough version in a 70°F kitchen and asked the temperature questions everyone with a cool kitchen needs answered. She also showed up Sunday morning to leave detailed notes for @Priscilla Fuesting on parchment paper and oven transfer. "It helps to transfer to the baking steel/stone/pan whatever easier. Hope it helps." That's a member teaching a brand-new member, the morning after the bake, no prompt.
@Michel Jodoin ran a poolish version that posted into Sunday morning. Crumb shot is coming.
The framework held under every variation the room threw at it.
🌍 Real Life Showed Up Anyway
This is the beat I want named. Every Saturday Bake-Along happens in the middle of somebody's actual life.
@Tracy Havlik baked on Friday because she'd be out Saturday. @Kathee Judd fought a Telstra tower outage to get her photos up at all. @Priscilla Fuesting dropped her dough on the way to the oven and kept going. @Robert Caldas ran into the wall of high hydration and walked away to come back another day. The bake-along bends around your week, not the other way. That flexibility is part of why it works.
💛 Sandy Chong, Again
@Sandy Chong led the 7-day leaderboard at +2,719 points this week. That's her second straight week at the top, and she's still pulling away. The points are just the number behind what she actually does, which is keep everybody in the thread feeling like they belong there.
When @Linda Glantz posted her dough, Sandy was there. When @Susie Kendall asked about coil folds, Sandy was there with "You know how to do coil folds, don't you go until it's smooth. Then remember lots of steam in the oven." (Even Sandy was quoting the chant by dinner.) When @Joseph Bilodeau posted his bake, Sandy replied with the steam reminder again. When @Cheryl Odden talked about the learned experience of the bake, Sandy wrote: "It's a learned experience, isn't it? I am just walking in the door. Been gone since midday on Thursday."
A 1,844-comment working thread needs more than one good teacher. It needs somebody who makes every reply feel like a conversation worth having. That's @Sandy Chong.
🥖 The Member Moment
Sunday morning, before most of the country was up, @Matt Davies posted what should be required reading for every new member. "Some Key Takeaways From The Ciabatta Bake For Me." He named the two things every baker learns the hard way: high hydration is a mental obstacle more than a technical one, and skipping mise en place will bite you every single time.
A member teaching members, on the day after the bake, with no prompt from me. That's the room teaching itself. That's a permanent shift from "Henry's community" to "the community." Both can be true at the same time.
🍳 The Coaching Moment
Sunday morning at 10:30 AM, the follow-up most of you had been quietly waiting for. "Next-Day Ciabatta: Bring That Crust Back to Life." The post addressed the one thing every ciabatta baker wonders the morning after: why does the crust go soft overnight? Plain answer: thin crust, high hydration, that's the trade. The fix is a sixty-second oven revive. Stay tight to the dough you actually baked, then teach it back to crisp.
Most communities post the recipe and walk away. This room does the after-care.
⭐ Member Spotlights
First ever yeasted ciabatta. Dropped the dough on the way to the oven. Kept going anyway. Crumb had bubbles. Caption was "decided to keep going." That's not a baking story. That's a lesson about what it actually takes to learn anything. Priscilla, you showed up scared and you delivered. That's the move.
Couldn't be there Saturday so she baked Friday and posted ahead of the room with one of the most useful captions of the week. "If this can ease anyone's mind or apprehension." Twelve likes and 24 comments of bakers genuinely calmed by it. A veteran clearing the runway.
Wrote the takeaways post nobody asked for, and it might be the most useful piece of writing in the community this week. Named the fear. Named the fix. Did it without permission. That's a baker who's graduated from student to peer.
His hands on screen in "What Confidence Looks Like" were the visual proof half the room needed. You don't always have to write the words. Sometimes you just have to show the dough.
Took the recipe and made it her own with sourdough seeded rolls and a koala emoji. Beat a Telstra tower outage to post. The framework holds because bakers like Kathee are willing to riff on it and stubborn enough to upload anyway.
Two loaves at 50/50 wholemeal and 83% hydration with a one-hour autolyse. He always runs the experiment most of us are afraid to try. Eleven likes is the room paying attention.
Top of the 7-day leaderboard at +2,719 points for the second straight week, and the heartbeat of every reply chain in this thread. She didn't just bake. She made sure everyone else felt like baking was a thing they could do too.
Wasn't in the bake-along thread but spun off her own first-ever Tiger Bloomer the same weekend. "It's not perfect but I did it. And it's nearly all gone already." Only review that matters.
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📊 The Scoreboard
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Where We Stand
- #1 Bread Baking Community on Skool
- #1 Sourdough Community on Skool
- ProveWorth 5.0 Certified · Top 1% of 191,000+ Skool communities
- Top 10 of the Top 1,000 Hobbies Communities on Skool
- 891 members and growing every week
The Working Thread is still open. The Next-Day Ciabatta thread is filling up this morning with revived-crust photos. Drop your final crumb shots, your sandwich photos, your "I can't believe I made this" moments. We read every one.
Week 8 is coming. After what this room did with a dough you were all afraid of, I can't wait to see what you do with one you're not.
Sourdough, yeasted, enriched, and every bread in between.