The Mellow Bakers challenge scheduled three breads for May:  grissini, miche Point-a-Calliere, and cornbread.  Today I jump-started myself by baking the grissini, which I’ve  never made before.  It was  easy, in that I kneaded the ingredients  in my Kitchen Aid for a few minutes until they formed a smooth and supple dough.  After an hour at room temperature I divided, stretched and rolled the dough into sticks that went into the oven for 20 minutes.    Piece of cake…  😉

I only made half the recipe, because neither my husband nor I are too crazy about breadsticks.  I love bread, and I love crackers, but grissini have a personality conflict:  they’re not quite sure what they are, bread or crackers.   Still, I enjoyed the opportunity to learn a new method in bread baking.

Here’s the dough  at the end of rising…

Divided into 12 equal pieces….

… that are formed into sticks, some left plain, some rolled in parmiggiano-cheese with a little black pepper

After baking, they’ll keep for several days  in an air-tight container….

Comments: They were fun to make, but perhaps a bit too bland.  The variations proposed in the book might be better (roasted garlic or cheese in the dough, instead of just used to roll the sticks before baking).  If I make these again, I’ll use the alternative method of opening the full dough in a large rectangle and cutting the individual sticks  from it, which will considerably reduce the time to stretch and roll each stick.

You can see how some of my fellow Mellow Bakers made their grissini by following these links….

Abby, from Stir it! Scrape it!

Anne Marie, from Rosemary & Garlic

Steve, from Burntloafer

Looking forward to miche Point-a-Calliere, a close relative of the amazing Poilane bread….