Last Sunday I visited iggy’s “factory outlet” store in Watertown. They sell super fresh bread and pastries of all varieties, many of which they don’t distribute to local stores (no Shaw’s would know what to do with one of their 2 foot long crazy huge rustic loaves, for example). But I avoided the exotic stuff, cool as it looked, and instead got the standard loaf I usually get from them, a small francese, which, as far as I can tell, is the same as a ciabatta.

I’ve always noticed a distinct difference in the flavor of Iggy’s bread that I couldn’t put my finger on. A word did come to mind on Sunday, though: saffron. Is it possible that they add saffron to their bread? Had I discovered the great Iggy’s conspiracy? Probably not. I bet they just have superior flour. But I couldn’t get the saffron out of my head. So today I made a saffron ciabatta, just to try it. I ground up a scant 1/4 tsp of saffron and mixed it with a couple tablespoons of boiling water, waited about 10 minutes for it to “brew”, then mixed all of this with the rest of the water for the final build of the loaf.

I took it the first loaf of the oven about an hour ago, and I just ate a couple slices of it. The saffron is definitely present, and I think the overall flavor is subtly better than previous ciabatta. It’s at least as good as Iggy’s, in my opinion, but I’m biased because I made it and it’s much fresher than I could ever get from Iggy. Technically my loaf (and perhaps Iggy’s) is unorthodox in that it strays from the standard water/flour/yeast/salt of white bread, but I don’t care. It’s tasty.