You may recall two weeks ago, I featured garlic parsley rolls, made from this kinda cool “riot of rolls” dough from an early 1960’s Fleischmann’s Yeast and Gold Medal Flour baking booklet. Today’s post, based on the same basic recipe – ermmm, except I changed things up JUST a wee, tiny bit – makes bread sticks, and mighty nice ones, too.
For this version, I replaced the sugar with half the amount of honey, and added it to the yeast mixture instead of the flour…
It was, I think, the right thing to do. The honey in with the warm water fed the yeast and made for a frothier starter, and the final dough wasn’t quite as “Hawaiian Roll” sweet as the garlic parsley rolls were (not that there’s anything wrong with being Hawaiian Roll sweet).
As always, the dough is good to sit in your fridge for up to four days, so you can make one batch and do several different things with it over the course of your week; the rolls, then these bread sticks, and then…
well, we’ll just have to wait and see.
INGREDIENTS
Basic Dough:
•1 cup warm (110º) water
•1 packet (2-1/4 tsp) dry yeast
•2 tbsp honey
•2 tbsp butter, softened
•1/2 egg, lightly beaten ~2 tbsp*
•1 tsp salt
•1/2 tsp black pepper
•3 to 3-1/2 cups flour
Bread Sticks
•1/2 Riot of Roll Dough
•1 egg, beaten*
•1 tbsp water
•Garlic powder
•Coarse sea salt
*Use the remaining half egg from making the dough to whisk with the water for the egg wash for your first batch of bread sticks.
Stir the warm water into the yeast and honey in the bowl of a stand mixer with the dough hook attached, and let rest for 15 minutes until foamy.
Whisk three cups of the flour together with the salt and pepper in another mixing bowl and set aside.
Once the yeast and warm water mixture is foamy, stir in 1-1/2 cups of the flour mixture along with the egg and butter until smooth.
With the mixer on medium, add the remaining flour mixture by quarter cupfuls, until the dough is elastic and easy to handle. Use the extra 1/2 cup of plain flour if needed.
Brush another mixing bowl (the one you whisked the flour, salt, and pepper together in would work here) with olive oil.
Gather the dough together in a ball and add to the oiled bowl, turning to coat all sides of the dough.
Cover with foil and stash in the fridge for at least two hours. You can keep the dough in the fridge for up to four days.
To make the bread sticks, line a baking pan with parchment paper and break off as much dough as you need; for this first batch, I used about 1/3 of the dough, yielding six very nicely sized bread sticks, more than enough for the two of us for dinner. I’ll make the rest of the bread sticks Saturday morning to go with the pâté I’m bringing to a gathering that evening.
Divide the dough into equal pieces, then roll each piece into a five to seven inch long stick and place one inch apart on the baking sheet.
Whisk the half-egg with the water and brush over the sticks.
Sprinkle with salt and garlic powder, then cover with a kitchen towel and let rise until doubled in size. I let mine rest for an hour, then set the oven to 350º and let it rest for another 30 minutes while the oven heated.
Bake the risen bread sticks for 20 to 25 minutes, or until golden brown, then remove from the oven and serve.
Nice bread sticks, except…
I went a little crazy and sprinkled this batch with some celery seed along with the sea salt and garlic powder.
Let me say this about that; I wouldn’t do that, if I were you.
Update!
When I made the first batch o’ bread sticks, they were good… but mebbe a little too salty for my personal taste; so, when I used the rest of the dough to make this batch for our book club gathering, I went very light on the sea salt, kept the garlic powder, and added a bit of Salt-Free Old World 3rd Street Seasoning from The Spice House, and some poppy and sesame seeds. Much more better.