Breadsticks

I have no idea why, but when presented with the chance of a few child-free hours to get on and write my book proposal, I felt the urgent need to make breadsticks…

Actually, I do know why. I am a quite magnificent procrastinator. That is why.

Anyway, they were pretty yummy, and the Smalls liked them, and I did get my proposal done (just need to write a couple of chapters now…)

This is a tweak on the recipe in the River Cottage Bread book by Daniel Stevens, and goes something like this…

This is what you need:

• 250g bread flour
• 250g plain flour
• 5g dried yeast
• 10g table salt
• 325ml water
• drizzle of rapeseed oil
• About 2tbsp melted butter
• sugar and cinammon-about a tbsp of each, mixed together in a bowl

This is what you do:

• Combine the flours, yeast and salt in a bowl (I did mine with a freestanding mixer, but you can knead by hand, although it is quite a wet, sticky dough)
• Add the water, and a drizzle of oil, and knead to bring it all together
• Knead for about 10 minutes-until ‘silky and smooth’
• Shape the dough into a round, and then place it back in your bowl and cover with a tea towel
• Leave to rise until doubled in size (about an hour or two)
• Then flour your work surface liberally and roll out the dough until it is about 5mm thick
• In one deft movement (!) flip the dough over and dust the other side with flour
• Cut out strips (using a knife or one of those bread chopper things that looks like a grout spreader) about 1cm wide and place on a baking tray (grease or line the tray)
• Use a pastry brush to ‘paint’ the strips with melted butter and then sprinkle the sugar/cinammon mix over the top

• Leave to prove for about 30mins
• P-reheat your oven to 200C
• Bake for about 15-20mins-I did 15, and they were nice and golden but a bit chewy, I would maybe go for 20 minutes next time

The Smalls thought these were wonderful, especially when combined with Nutella dip (just Nutella, in a bowl)