Excellent taste, simple to make, and if you bake for five more minutes, the crust is coarser and a little more flavorful. I know, it is a matter of preference. Thank you so much for the recipe!

I cannot tell you how AMAZING this bread is. 3 loaves were gone in under a day and a half! It is crunchy on the outside, soft and moist on the inside and filled with all these lovely bubbly craters! I replaced the milk with water and just baked on a greased and floured baking sheet and it was still wonderful. I cannot rate this recipe highly enough. I served with olive tapenade and caprese salad for appetizers and it was wonderful. My fiance and family could not get enough of it! They beg for it EVERYDAY. Will certainly make again and again and again! First, the sponge is amazing. Tastes just as good after only sitting for a few hours as it does after 24+. I made it once and left it for 24 hours in a cool place and that made nice fluffy bread without many air pockets. The second time i made the sponge I left it right next to a warm stove top and it rose very quickly and made these HUGE air pockets in my finished product. I only left this for 4 hours but the taste and texture were FANTASTIC and the sponge almost spilled over the rim of the bowl! It was a bit difficult to get out of the bowl because of its stickiness but that was to be expected. For those that thought the sponge needed water, it doesn't. It will look just like a clump of dough in the beginning but if you leave it you'll be pleasantly surprised with a bubbling, frothy, sticky sponge. Secondly, I made this recipe cautiously because I expected it to be very difficult to handle, but it was not.

Absolutely the best bread! When I make this, neither myself nor my husband can control ourselves. We'll 'try it' until a whole loaf is gone!

This was my very first loaf of bread and it was wonderful! I love that there wasn't a lot of kneading. I wasn't sure when the dough had completed it final doubling, so I cooked the loaves one at a time. I put the first in a little too soon, but the second was 'perfect' according to my fiance.

This didn't taste anything like the ciabatta we have here in NZ. I was disappointed after such a time consuming recipe. I think it required more density and more olive oil to give it that real flavour.

I'd like to say Thank you for the awesome recipe. This was my first bread, and i'm probably gonna make it like, every other day. thank you :)

I tried this recipe three times. Although my yeast was fresh(and different each time), I had a major problem with the rise. The bread was good, but was much flatter than the ciabatta I purchase. I know ciabatta is a flatter bread, but this was about an inch tall.

Wow! Yummy, chewy, crusty, but only slightly tangy.... think I'll leave the sponge starter for 24 hours instead of only 12 hours and see if it adds to the tang! My breads did stick a it in places that I didn't faithfully 'well flour' so don't skimp! Definitely a keeper!

This bread was sooooo delicious that I literally had to sign up so I can put in my two cents!!!!! I eat alot of bread (European) and this is close to ciabatta as it gets!!!!

While the bread was cooling, I had to sample the butt. Then I had to cut a slice for my husband. Then I had to have another slice... Long story short, I'm glad this recipe made 2 loaves!!

Easy simple, and tasteful. Thanks Benoit for this recipe. For those that might have had flat hard tasteless bread... the yeast itself could be to blame, it might not be active or might have died in the rising process.

I was looking for a bread machine recipe when this came up. This works great! Use the french bread setting, but extend the last rise by 30 minutes. Great flavor, good sandwich bread. Makes 1 loaf.

Turned out beautifully, like the ciabatta I used to buy from the store and eat with olive oil and balsamic. It is hard to keep away from it!

We used our own sourdough starter with this recipe that we got from this web site. Has great taste and turned out wonderful. Thanks!

Delicious crunchy crust. Makes great sandwiches.

benoit hogue , you are the wizard of ciabatta. never made ciabatta before and everything worked perfecto! i also had no stones or pizza stone, but i did have a round superstone sassafras. for anyone who has one,follow directions. when you get to step 3, turn your dough right in to your stone that has been dusted with flour. put your lid on and let proof for one and a half to two hours.heat oven to 425, remove lid punch finger holes in dough,return lid to bottom of super stone. bake for 25 min. on bottom shelf, then remove lid and bake for 5 more min. oboy will you have perfect ciabatta, i also have a long loaf super stone it should be great for making sandwich bread, thanks again!

Good recipe for a good hearty bread. My crust didn't turn out as crusty as I would have wanted, and I even misted, but that was no problem, everyone loved it.

This did'nt turn out well for me at all. It did'nt rise well. I did end up baking it, and they were flat disks! I gave this a 3 because I really liked the taste of them. I've never had a problem with bread before, but maybe I did something wrong?

The only complaint I have about this recipe is that my family found it to be too salty. I cut the salt way down to about 1/2 tsp. Other than that it was very good. I will definitely be making this again and again!

starter appears to need more water