Yum
It’s April 2nd and it’s snowing in our corner of the world. I’ve been feeling lousy, battling a headache for over two weeks and my big Friday night was passing out on the couch by 8:00 pm and getting up at midnight only to crawl into bed and sleep until 8:00 this morning. I wish I could say it was just the weather, or some tequila 😉 but alas my body seems to be experiencing some issues. 🙁 I’m working on it…. For now though my answer to feeling awful, aside from sleeping, is to cook… or bake… or just to make something delicious in the kitchen. This is my way of relaxing and it doesn’t hurt that we then get to enjoy the results.
I had thought of these a while back while at a board meeting. I wanted to make rawhide like dog bones and I needed to make them in such a way that they could be made ahead and stored until ready to be consumed. I needed to be able to make them in big batches. I wanted to make them from donut or beignet dough but the though of trying to figure out how to get a deep fryer into the park, not to mention making big batches of a finicky yeast dough without a kitchen, was just not going to work. Then it occurred to me… who doesn’t love breadsticks?
Hard crunchy, salty and garlicky breadsticks. YUMMY….. I know because I ate several of them before they cooled off enough to be crunchy…. and they do get crunchy when they cool off… and they are deliscious!
They are delicious and fun when you twist and tie them up like I did…. they make for a great snack, one I think might be a winner for our Dog Fest this summer 😉
The base of the recipe comes from Manu’s Menu though I changed it and added some fun ingredients. I had the last bit of lemon infused olive oil that worked really well here and worked beautifully with garlic salt and rosemary though there could have been a bit more rosemary and I might suggest sprinkling some on top as well and kneading into the dough.
Dog Bone Breadsticks
- 4 cups all-purpose flour
- 2 cups water, lukewarm
- 2 tsp sugar
- 10-15 grams fresh yeast
- 3 tbsp butter, melted
- 2 tbsp of dried rosemary
- 2 tbsp garlic salt
- 4 tbsp lemon infused extra virgin olive oil + more for brushing
- 1/2 tsp salt + extra (coarse) salt for sprinkling
Mix the water and sugar in a microwavable bowl and heat until just hot to the touch, add the yeast and set aside for 2-3 minutes. Put the flour and salt in to the bowl of a stand mixer and add the melted butter and yeast mixture, stir with a dough hook attachment. Mix on low adding the lemon infused olive oil then bring up to medium speed and knead for about 5 minutes, until the dough pulls away from the sides of the bowl, it will still be a little sticky.
Take the dough out of the mixer and cut in half. Knead each half separately adding rosemary to one half. Roll each half into a rectangle, try to make them the same size. Sprinkle the dough with olive oil, then add more rosemary to the one half and sprinkle the other half with garlic salt. Cover with a dry clean tea towel and let rise for about 2 hours.
Using a pizza cutter or sharp knife cut a narrow strip from each rectangle, twist them together and knot them at each end. Place them on a pan lined with parchment paper, brush with oil and sprinkle with coarse salt then bake at 290 degrees F until golden brown. You can eat these warm, they’ll be soft, if you can actually wait and allow them to cool they’ll be nice and crunchy. We like to eat them with a little butter.