grissini | Bewitching Kitchen

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.