About this Recipe

We just love healthy snack foods and we think these bread sticks qualify. I recall the smell of homemade bread when getting home from school. My mother believed in healthy snack foods and in our family, we picked up on her food habits and have incorporated healthy eating ideas into our own lives. Breadsticks can be seasoned with herbs and spices. You can make them thin like a pencil and they would be crispy or fat and plump which makes them wonderful for dipping and sopping up salad dressing and sauces. You could braid the breadsticks together when you are forming them and fancy little bread items for festive occasions. The texture of bread dough and rolling it out and making shapes feels fun and fun is good. If you have little helpers, encourage them to come beside you at the countertop and create their very own breadsticks. Making bread goes back to the beginning of time and this very simple process can bring some good family time to the kitchen.

Grandmother's Tips for Bread Sticks Recipe:

1. Once you have the dough ready, prepare one batch of logs at a time. That way, while the first batch is baking, you can be making the second batch.

2. Have some fun with this and tie some of the logs into knots for baking.

3. Be sure when dissolving the yeast that you follow the instructions on the yeast packaging and have the temperature of the water whatever is suggested. Generally they range between 110 and 130 degrees F. on the instructions.

4. Bread sticks and knots are a good compliment when served with veggies and dip.

5. Make fun food for kids whenever you can. These bread sticks make for great lunch ideas for kids. Include a bit of homemade dip and raw apple and carrot slices and guaranteed it will be a nice change from a regular sandwich in the lunchbox.

---

Ingredients

(Print)

Makes 32 bread sticks

Bread:

2 1/4 teaspoons active dry yeast, at room temperature

3/4 cup warm water (110 degrees F)

3/4 cup milk + 1 Tablespoon pure lemon juice or white vinegar to sour

3/4 cup olive oil

1 1/2 teaspoons salt

2 Tablespoons sesame seeds

3 1/2 cups all purpose flour + extra for rolling as needed

extra oil for greasing

Garnish:

1 egg, beaten with 1 teaspoon water for an egg wash

Optional sprinkle garnishes:

sesame seeds, paprika, seasoning salt, cinnamon

Directions

1. Place warm water into a measuring cup, add the yeast and dissolve for 10 minutes.

2. In a small bowl add the lemon juice or vinegar to the milk and let sit for 10 minutes.

3. Stir in the oil, salt and sesame seeds.

4. Stir in dissolved yeast. Measure the flour into a large mixing bowl and make a well in the center.

5. Pour in the wet ingredients and use a wooden spoon to mix and form a soft dough. Use your hands to knead.If it is sticky, sprinkle extra flour to make a soft dough consistency.

6. Form the dough into a ball.

7. Clean and grease the large mixing bowl to coat with oil.

8. Cover with a clean towel and set aside in a warm, non drafty spot to rise for one hour.

9. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper and grease the paper with olive oil.

10. Punch down and turn onto a floured surface. Divide the ball in half.

11. Cover one half with plastic wrap to keep from drying out and set aside.

12. Preheat oven to 325 degrees F.

13. Cut the remaining ball into 16 equal pieces by cutting in half, then half and half again.

14. Roll each piece with your hands to form a little log then place it onto the prepared baking sheet. Leave space between each piece.

15. Beat egg and water together with a fork then brush a little over each bread stick.

16. Sprinkle on optional garnishes.

17. Place into the preheated oven and bake 25-30 minutes or until golden brown.

18. Remove to a wire rack to cool. Repeat with the second batch.

Enjoy!

Return to this Bread Sticks recipe or check out more recipes at Grandmother's Kitchen

So in this age of simplicity and everything at the ready why bother to make bread yourself? As much as anything, it feels good to make it yourself and you know what you are getting. Of course many of the homemade Artisan Breads are already perfect and you'd be hard pressed to compete with some of them, even in your own kitchen.

Many local Artisan Bakeries have perfected their process. You can ask your local baker or the people selling at Farmers Markets exactly what ingredients they are using and they are going to tell you honestly. They want your business and aim to please. Farmers Dotter is our favorite local baker. Their make wood-fired breads that are baked without commercial yeast. Their sour dough breads are naturally leavened. These are the types of breads we at Grandmother's Kitchen buy, when purchasing bread.

Mostly, we bake bread just for special events. You can always count on feeling good when you invite family and friends over and there is a loaf of homemade bread, buns or fun items like these bread sticks. We leave the more complex wood-fired breads to the local home baker experts and make the more simplistic breads in our kitchen.

If you've never made bread, starting with simple recipes like this one will give you sense of satisfaction because they are creative adventures and you can't go too far wrong. Even if your bread stick come out a bit on the hard side, you will still enjoy eating them and it's a learning process for the brand new home cook.

You will get different results using different flours. We used a wonderful brand called Anita's Organic Mill All purpose unbleached white flour for this recipe. It is a flour we have to purchase from the Whole Food Organic Stores and it is not always available to us. So, the main all purpose flour we get locally is Rogers Unbleached All purpose flour Brand. We choose this brand because it has no additives and is a good all purpose flour that works for all our baking needs.

There are so many flours out there. You will find that 100% Whole wheat flours, rye flours, buckwheat flours, gluten free flours are all going to have a different result in a recipe so if you want to use alternative flours, it is a good idea to find a recipe that has been tried and tested using them so you know what results to expect.