Roasted Garlic Breadsticks

When ordering pizza, breadsticks were always my favourite part. I loved the dough without the sauce and cheese, and loved the dipping sauce more. I wouldn’t touch those sauces now, because if you ever read the ingredient list, you would realize that there isn’t much of anything natural in them. This version makes eating breadsticks much more acceptable in my books.

The smell of the roasted garlic will make these breadsticks irresistible. Both of my daughters said “eww” when they saw breadsticks for the first time, but 5 minutes later half of them were gone and I barely had any left for a good picture.

If you are short on time, roast the garlic while the bread machine is running, and you can incorporate it in when the beeper goes off for the add-ins, or you can simply kneed in at the end.  It is more than okay to have large chunks of garlic! I would suggest the roasted garlic over the garlic powder any day.

You can do these by hand, or with a mixer if you want.  To keep it easy, I always use a bread maker.  My husband prefers to do all bread by hand, but I don’t have the time.

Serve these warm with your favourite dipping sauce. I would recommend a creamy ranch sauce, but that’s me!

MAKES 32 STICKS

INGREDIENTS

– 2.5 cups all-purpose flour
– 1 tablespoon + 1/2 teaspoon instant yeast
– 1 teaspoons sea salt
– 1/4 cup nutritional yeast
– 1 cup warm water
– 1 head of roasted garlic, or 1 teaspoon garlic powder
– 2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
– 1.5 tablespoons dried herbs, or 3 tablespoons fresh (I used basil)
– toppings – olive oil, salt, pepper, sesame seeds, etc

DIRECTIONS
1. Combine all ingredients, except for the toppings, into a bread maker. Set to dough cycle.
2. Once the dough is done, remove to a lightly floured surface.
3. Preheat oven to 425F and line two baking sheets with parchment paper
4. Flatten the dough into a rectangle, roughly the size of a large ipod (9 x 12 inches. Divide the dough into 4. Divide each section into 8, so that you have 32 pieces that are shaped roughly the size of your fingers.
5. using your hands, roll each piece into long breadsticks, about half the length of your baking sheet.
6. Brush with extra virgin olive oil, and sprinkle lightly with fine grain salt, black pepper and any other topping of your choice.
7. Bake for approximately 15 minutes, until lightly brown.