A few weeks ago, I got my hands on one of those official culinary textbooks. I’d actually never seen one before and it was a vast difference from most cookbooks. It was, like, science. Everything was very well documented and very perfectly explained. Surely, I thought, I could make any recipe in this book without a problem.
Turns out I was very wrong. The issue was that all of the recipes assumed that you were making enough for, say, a restaurant. When I decided to make grissini (thin bread sticks) using the recipe in this book, it turns out that it would have made something like 600 sticks. That’s a bit more than I needed by about a factor of 20. So I tried to do some dividing and come up with a workable recipe. Turns out that was easier said than done because I ended up with fractions of ingredients. It wasn’t pretty.
Ultimately though, I did find a recipe that worked and I ended up with these beauties.
So the photo above was from the successful batch, but before I get to that I want to go back to the failure.
I actually thought this was going to be an easy recipe and I think I got too cocky because of it. I mean how hard could it be to make bread sticks?! I did some crazy substitutions. I didn’t let the dough ferment long enough. I didn’t roll them correctly.
It was just a crazy mess of disasters that sometimes happens in baking and is always a humbling experience. I put a bunch of different spices on the failed version and they looked like this.
FAIL
Now. Let’s be clear. These guys were perfectly edible. And in fact someone who tried both versions said they preferred what I considered to be the failed version. I just wasn’t really happy with them because they weren’t what I was envisioning. I wanted the crispy browned sticks that were thin and salty and delicious. And you know, round.
These were square and more doughy which wasn’t what I wanted.
Too doughy.
Ok. So after that fail, I decided to try again a few days later and be diligent. In fact, I decided to try an entirely different recipe that would be a bit easier to scale down.
Grissini (adapted from Susan’s Recipe at Wild Yeast)
(Makes 32 bread sticks)- 270 g (scant 2.5 Cups) all-purpose flour
- 42 g (1/4 Cup) whole wheat flour (Susan’s recipe uses only AP flour, but I figure I would add a bit of whole wheat flour for extra flavor)
- 1 Teaspoon instant yeast
- .75 Teaspoon salt
- 200 g water at room temp (if you don’t have a digital scale, 236g water = 1 cup so this would be a scant cup. If your dough is too sticky then add more flour a bit at a time.)
- 1 Tablespoon olive oil
- Whatever toppings you want (for this version I just used kosher salt and pepper)
If you are making this without a mixer, combine the flour(s), yeast, and salt in a bowl. Then mix the the olive oil and water in a cup. Add your wet ingredients to your dry ingredients and mix well until your dough forms a ball. On a lightly floured surface, knead the dough for 4-6 minutes until it soft and elastic.
Then let the dough ferment, loosely covered, for 2 hours at room temperature in a lightly oiled bowl.
Once the dough has at least doubled in size, cut it in half with a dough cutter or serrated knife and then roll it out into a rough rectangle and using a pizza cutter, slice it up! You can make the other half right away if you want for the full 32 bread sticks or you can freeze the dough for up to 3 months without a problem.
Cutting the stuff.
Next is a crucial part that I missed on my failed attempt. Take each of these strands and roll them a bit to form the bread stick. For some reason I thought that if I cooked them as is, they would puff up and form a stick. NOT TRUE. Just lightly roll them though until they form the desired shape.
Then lay them out on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper and dust with whatever toppings you want.
Some of the salt will fall off.
Bake these bad boys at 350 degrees for 25-30 minutes or until they are lightly browned and super crispy. My oven really sucks and loses heat like crazy so maybe check them at 20 minutes.
Once they are out of the oven, cool them on a rack for maximum crispiness. Then put them in some kind of artsy cup or bowl obviously.
Artsy!
Ok. So this recipe isn’t that hard actually. It is pretty similar to a pizza dough recipe, just slice it up before baking instead of making pizza.
What’s nice about these bread sticks is that they keep really well for days. I snacked on them for an entire week and they were just fine.
Looking good! But how do you have enough to last a week, if you don’t make 600?
Yep, looks good. But why is only the water metric?
@Jean, post updated! 236 grams of water = 1 cup, so it is a scant cup of water. I wouldn’t stress about it though. If you end up with too much water, you can always add a bit more flour as you knead it.
Okay Nick, so what’s the difference between kosher salt and regular salt?
Sure. Kosher salt is actually what I prefer to use for most things. It isn’t quite as harsh as regular table salt. It has larger flakes and is especially good for topping things. If you used regular salt for this it would taste REALLY salty and the salt would just disolve into the bread rather than staying in crystal form on top.
Also, Kosher salt normally doesn’t have additives to it like Iodine that you find in table salt.
Because the grain structure is larger, you need more of it to impart a salty flavor to something but it is also harder to over-salt something using it which is why I prefer when cooking.
Kosher salt is about the same price as normal salt. Maybe a bit more expensive, but worth it in my opinion. Pick up a box the next time you are at the store :)
I’ve been breaking Sara’s balls something fierce of making these as of late. It’s coincidentally and funny that you made them (twice). Factor of 30 eh? Sounds like some simple division, assuming the recipe was by weight right?
Admittedly though, when I bake out of “industry” books I am usually forced to half or quarter even the “test” recipe that makes like, 8 loves of bread or 30 croissants. SOMETIMES its tricky when the %’s are so exact (say down to 8th of an oz ~1.76 g). If memory serves me correct, one of Pierre Herme’s croissant recipes makes like 300. Who needs that many croissants?
Oh right, a bakery…
I have been humbled by a recipe more times that I want to admit! Good for you for trying again and succeeding! They look great!
And they go so well with a glass of cold white wine
Those look so good! I never would have thought about making them. I thought that if I baked my flat bagels, they would puff up.. but they didn’t and I ended up with flagels.