Easy Breadsticks - Savory or Sweet (Recipe)

Lately I've found two great new recipes at Anissa's Kitchen. I'll save one of them for another day, but today I'd like to share my adaptations of her recipe for 45 Minute Bread Sticks.  First, this is the recipe as Anissa posted it:

Quick and Easy Breadsticks

1 1/2 C warm water
2 T sugar
1 T yeast
1/2 t salt
3 1/2 - 4 C flour
1/4 C butter
3/4 C grated Parmesan or mozzarella cheese
Johnny's Garlic Seasoning (or seasoning of choice)

1. Mix the water, sugar, and yeast together in a measuring cup or in the bottom of your mixer. Let it sit for 5 minutes.
2. Add the salt and the flour, one cup at a time, until it is well incorporated. Mix on high for 5 minutes. Let the dough rest for 5 minutes.
3. Melt the butter and pour half of it into a jelly roll pan (large cookie sheet).
4. Place the dough in the center of the pan. Let it sit for 2 or 3 minutes. Letting the dough rest makes it MUCH easier to shape.
5. Spread the dough out flat onto the pan until it reaches all of the edges. Doing all of the spreading and cutting of these bread sticks, in the pan makes cleaning up your counter so much easier!
6. Pour the other half of the butter onto the dough. Spread it around with your hands. Sprinkle the Johnny's Garlic Seasoning all over the dough, and then the Parmesan cheese.
7. With a pizza cutter cut the dough into three rows lengthwise, and then into about 12 little height wise rows.
8. Put the pan into a 170 degree oven for about 7-10 minutes. The breadsticks should rise about 1 inch.
9. Turn your oven up to 350 and bake for about 12 minutes, or until golden brown.
10. When they come out of the oven, let them sit and rest again for about 5 minutes. Then redefine your cutting lines with the pizza cutter.

These are the changes I made:

To Make Easy Garlic Breadsticks

Same as above, except for a few minor changes:

• This recipe makes too much bread for my family of three.  So instead of using one jelly roll pan, I divided the dough between two 11 x 7 baking dishes.  I baked one as directed and refrigerated the other until the following day.  I brought it to room temperature, then baked as directed.  It turned out great, and what a time saver!
• I omitted the cheese, for multiple reasons:  my husband doesn't care for grated cheese, we don't need the "extra" cheese, and the recipe is more frugal without it.  The garlic-butter flavors are yummy even without the cheese.
• When we ran out of garlic seasoning mix, I substituted garlic powder plus a little crushed red pepper and a little dried parsley.  It wasn't identical, but it was still good!
• For me, cutting the dough with a sharp knife was easier than using a pizza cutter.

To Make Easy Cinnamon Breadsticks

Again, the procedure is exactly the same, except that I used a blend of sugar and cinnamon instead of garlic powder.


Fortuitously, we had leftover vanilla buttercream frosting on hand. (You know, staple ingredients, right?) That was a sweet addition to the breadsticks, which weren't overly sweet on their own.


One quick kitchen tip:
To save time and money, mix your own cinnamon-sugar mixture.  I refilled a shaker-top bottle that originally contained cinnamon.  Having the mixture on hand makes it easy when we make cinnamon breadsticks or cinnamon toast, and sometimes I'll sprinkle a bit in my coffee.  No mess, no waste!


I'm linking up!