Revised 18 October 2026; first published 2024-01-22. Original byline and publication date retained.
My working life included instrumentation loop diagrams for process plants. They make relationships explicit: signals, instruments, and equipment depend on one another. Baking offered a different material, but a related problem. Flour, water, yeast, time, and heat interact; a formula specifies the inputs, while the dough shows what those inputs have produced.
My career in information technology took me through corporate work in South Africa, Australia, and the United States. I sought out ciabatta as I travelled and found a wide range of loaves. That experience sharpened my interest in the method: how flour and water form a dough, how fermentation changes it, and how handling and heat determine the baked structure.
Engineering trained me to value measurements, relationships, and repeatable processes. Baking added evidence that cannot be read from a diagram alone. The baker also attends to temperature, elasticity, expansion, aroma, and the condition of the dough at each stage. Measurement makes comparison possible; observation tells you what the batch needs.
Ciabatta has kept those disciplines in conversation. Its high-hydration dough exposes the consequences of flour choice, fermentation, strength, and touch. A written method is essential, but skill develops by recording conditions, comparing results, and learning to read the material rather than following the clock mechanically.
That is the connection I value between engineering and baking: a process made precise enough to understand, and responsive enough to respect what the material reveals.