Makes around 30-40 slim breadsticks, or 20 thick ones.
Ingredients:
140ml water
25g olive oil
240g white bread flour
10-15g semolina
1 dsp malt extract
7g yeast
1 tsp salt
Method:
I make my dough in the breadmaker so the instructions will
be based around that but if you want to have a bash by hand feel free to do so;
for me, using the breadmaker leads to less washing up!
1)
Pour the water and oil into the base of your
breadmaker pan.
2)
Scatter over the flour and the semolina.
3)
In separate corners of the pan drag the malt
extract off the spoon (it’s sticky stuff), add in the salt, then make an indent
in the middle of the flour –not as far down as the water- and add the yeast.
4)
Set the breadmaker to pizza dough setting if you
have it (this takes around 50 minutes on mine) or to “dough” and sit back and
let the machine do the work.
5)
Preheat your oven to 200˚C and put two large baking sheets in to heat
up.
6)
When the cycle is complete, divide the dough in
half and cover with a teatowel before setting to work cutting it up into
pieces. The size of a small cherry tomato gets you a thin breadstick around
30cm in length. By dividing the mixture up into this size, you end up with
between 30-40 pieces of dough but if you want thicker breadsticks I’d only cut
up to 20 pieces.
7)
Once you have your dough divided, it’s time to
get rolling! This is a pleasing activity, where you simply roll the dough into
long, thin sausages with the palms of your hands flat against the board (think
playdough rolling as a child). 30cm (i.e. a school ruler) is the length you’re
after and the sticks should be as thin as a lady’s little finger (i.e. mine).
Remember there’s yeast in these breadsticks so they do puff up; don’t worry if
their pencil-thinness sets off alarm bells.
8)
I made one third of each sesame, poppy seed and
plain breadsticks; if you want to do this too, the only thing that you have to
remember is that you must incorporate the seeds right from the minute you start
rolling. Scatter some seeds across your board and really mash them in when you
begin to roll. For my first batch I just wet the sticks and then rolled them in
the seeds, which of course fell off instantly after cooking- heed my words of
caution!
9)
The breadsticks can go straight in the oven:
there’s no need to prove, so arrange them on the preheated baking trays and
give them around 15 minutes on the upper middle shelf, watching carefully, in
case they catch. You want a nice even bake and uniform colour but what I found
I needed to do was to put a “slice” of tinfoil over the tips of the breadsticks
as the ends cooked much faster.
10)
The breadsticks are at their best when they turn
a dark caramel and of course, they have to be absolutely cooked through to be
crunchy! Test them by snapping a sacrificial breadstick; they may be the right
colour but not “dried out” enough yet.
11)
Cook in batches and then cool on a wire rack.
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