Chunky Bread Sticks

All kids love bread sticks and they are awfully good for dipping too. So when I was on my ‘must cook savoury nibbles’ kick, I thought I’d give bread sticks a try.

 

 Ingredients:

175gms spelt flour

75gms kamut flour

1 tsp Vitamin C

1 tsp dry yeast

1 tsp sugar

175 ml warm water

Pinch of salt

1 tbsp olive oil

1.       Pre-heat the oven to 200 degrees fan, 225 degrees conventional.

2.       Activate the dry yeast. Add the yeast and sugar to the warm water and cover. Leave for about fifteen minutes until it is frothy and then stir.

3.       Mix the flours, Vitamin C and salt in a large bowl. (Add quick yeast at this point if you are using that instead of dry yeast.)

4.       Add the yeast mixture. Mix and knead into a smooth and pliable dough.

5.       Roll the dough into a ball, cover the bowl with a cloth and leave in a warm place for an hour or until it has doubled in volume.

6.       Punch back the dough, add the olive oil and knead until the oil has all been incorporated.

7.       Line a baking tray with baking parchment.

8.       Break off golf ball sized pieces of dough and roll them out with your fingers into long thin sausages about 20-25 cms long and less than a centimetre in diameter. Lay them on the parchment about a centimetre apart.

 9.       Cover with a cloth and leave in a warm place for 20-25 minutes.

10.   Bake until golden, about 15-20 minutes and allow to cool on a rack.

This will produce chunky bread sticks that are crisp on the outside and soft and fluffy inside. If you want thinner cruncher bread sticks then roll them out thinner.  They don’t stay fresh for long, but they can be brightened up the next day by sprinkling with water and popping in a hot oven (180 degrees fan, 200 conventional) for 5 minutes.