Breadsticks From Pinterest... Eh.

First, you have to forgive me for today's post.  I know that you've come to love my crankiness, which is awesome, but today might be more cranky than usual.  My house is a mess, there is a smell in the house that is less-than-pleasing and I can't locate it, the kids are home for Good Friday, and I am having an overall ROUGH DAY.  So if this post is extra-cranky, I hope you'll forgive me.

I found this pin on Pinterest and thought it would be great... we have breadsticks at least once a week and since I found the joy of making homemade bread, I figured that homemade breadsticks would be super-duper awesome.  In reality, I won't make these again... I'll give you my reasons after showing you the process.

If you chek out the pin, it's for Olive Garden breadsticks.  Awesome, right?  So I went to work.


I put one package of yeast into a bowl with two tablespoons of sugar and a cup and a half of warm water.  Let it sit covered for 10 minutes or so until the yeast is all bubbly.

I love it when the yeast bubbles.  I'm such a weirdo.


In another bowl, I combined four and a half cups of flour and a tablespoon of salt.

Once the yeast had bubbled, I added the flour mixture to the bowl and added two tablespoons of melted butter.  I used the hook attachment for the mixer and turned it to low, letting the whole works mix.

Once it was mixed well, I kept it in the bowl and let it knead for just a few minutes.

The next step was to cut off pieces of the dough and shape them into breadsticks.  Here's where I had some problems. They didn't say how much of the dough they used to make into the breadsticks... they also didn't say how many this batch of dough should make... So I, assuming that this recipe was for one meal, thought it should make six breadsticks.  I portioned the dough into six pieces and made them into sticks.  I covered them and let them rise on a greased silicon mat for 45 minutes.

Ahem.


Do you see the size of those breadsticks?  It's like the Incredible Hulk is coming for dinner.  Those were like small loaves of bread.  So, I cut them in half and rolled them into shape, letting them rise again.

Criminy, that's at least a little better.


I baked them at 400 degrees for about 6 minutes.  I pulled them out and brushed a mixture of one stick of butter, 2 teaspoons of garlic powder and 1 teaspoon of salt over them.  Back in the oven they went for another 6 minutes or so.

They got a little too baked... not burned really, just extra-baked.


So here's why I won't be making these again: they were just too much work.  I know, I'm pulling the lazy card. Maybe they wouldn't have seemed so cumbersome if I had know how big to make the breadsticks.  That one little omission cost me time and added some frustration.  I buy frozen breadsticks (with coupons, natch) and they are so simple: take them out of the box, pop the in the oven.  And although these breadsticks were pretty good, they didn't taste any better than the frozen kind.  Since I cannot make a meal without 1,200 requests from my children for one thing or another, I need simple, especially when taste isn't sacrificed.


So there you have it: I pinned, I baked, I went back to the frozen kind.  These things are bound to happen.