Hungry for some breadsticks? Here are two recipes which will give you a mountain – not kidding! – of truly addictive breadsticks: an easier chewy Italian recipe and a soft chewy but more time-consuming sourdough one. Be ready for both mountains to disappear very fast leaving nothing but some breadcrumbs…
A year ago – Pear Clafoutis, Jelly Muffins and Scandinavian Twists
Two years ago – Colours of Summer
Three years ago – Short Post on Short Crusty Baguettes
Grissini or Thin Bread Sticks from Italy adapted from www.wildyeastblog.com will make a lot of crunchy salty breadsticks. I made twice recipe twice as it turned out – each time it was a 100% success! Visit the link above to get the entire recipe.
My changes: As for the topping, I sprinkled some of the breadsticks with pepper and some with the authentic herbes de Provence.
Remarks: The procedure might seem a bit lengthy due to the extended rising time and several batches to bake but then it doesn’t require your immediate participation 🙂 Moreover these breadsticks are baking really fast, mine were ready in just about 20 minutes! When you are choosing the topping, make sure it is not “heavy” or just big – most of herbes de Provence just fell off although I mixed them into the olive oil. The grissini will be too thin for seeds either.
Result: Very addictive crunchy-crusty super-long breadsticks. The thinner you make them, the better, mmmm. Don’t be mislead by the photos – you will get really a mountain of them. It’s just that my camera battery died before I baked them all. And when I came back home some days ago, all that was left is pictured in the second photo…
The second breadstick recipe requires sourdough starter. I actually chose it cause my starter needed feeding while I had not much time to bake a proper sourdough bread. And here was this recipe which, although asking for a 6 hour rise, did not demand more than a usual breadstick recipe later on – and so I managed to bake it in one day. By the way, if you’re not ready to bake immediately, you can refrigerate the levain up to 24 hours which is handy.
Sourdough Bread Twists adapted from www.karenskitchenstories.com will make super-long soft and chewy breadsticks with all those seeds actually NOT falling off 🙂 The recipe with all the instructions can be found at the link above.
My changes: I used my rye sourdough starter which I fed with all purpose flour (this added some color and an extra hint of rye flavour to the dough) and rye flour instead of pumpernickel flour. I added the required active dry yeast, although I am quite confident with the rising power of my sourdough alone. I was not sure about throwing in the entire 2 tablespoons of salt, so I used less and also skipped the extra salt for sprinkling. But after tasting the breadsticks I can say that they could have benefited from more salt. I didn’t brush the breadsticks once baked with oil either.
Remarks: These breadsticks got a little bit tricky cause the combined power of sourdough and yeast made them all puffy. My breadsticks thus were really long (I had to bake them in two batches) and rather thick. They also were on the verge of falling from the baking sheet but I managed to stuff them into the oven 🙂 My first batch was all soft and chewy while the second one was crustier.
Result: The combination of the tangy sourdough flavour and the chewiness of the seeds is something you don’t get from grissini. These are more on the soft side, though the thinner you make these, the crunchier they’ll get. Add salt according to your taste but be careful – these twists are also addictive and you can end up eating them all…
Adding these to my Yeast Bread, Sourdough and Country-specific recipe collections. You can also check out this extra-salty breadstick recipe.
G.
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