Bread Sticks
Soft Olive Garden–Style Garlic Butter Breadsticks
Makes 12 breadsticks
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Bread Dough
4 1/4 cups (595 g) Gluten-Free Bread Flour (recipe included below), plus more for sprinkling
2 teaspoons (6 g) instant yeast
2 tablespoons (24 g) sugar
2 teaspoons (12 g) kosher salt
6 tablespoons (84 g) unsalted butter, at room temperature
1 1/4 cups plus 2 tablespoons warm water (about 95°F)
Garlic butter
3 tablespoons (42 g) unsalted butter, melted
1 teaspoon garlic salt
First make the bread dough. Place the flour, yeast and sugar in the bowl of your stand mixer, and use a handheld whisk to combine well. Add the salt, and whisk to combine. Add the butter and water, and mix on low speed with the dough hook until combined. Raise the mixer speed to medium and knead for about 5 minutes. The dough will be quite sticky, but should be smooth and stretchy. Spray a silicone spatula lightly with cooking oil spray, and scrape down the sides of the bowl.
Line a rimmed baking sheet with unbleached parchment paper and set it aside. Turn out the dough onto a lightly floured surface. Knead until smoother. Divide the dough into 12 pieces. With each piece, follow the tips below for shaping:
Hoagies (covering the remaining pieces of dough with a moist tea towel so that they don’t dry out), elongating each breadstick to about 8 inches long.
Place the breadsticks about 2 inches apart from one another on the prepared baking sheet, and dust with flour. Once all the breadsticks are shaped, cover the baking sheet with oiled plastic wrap and set in a warm, draft-free location to rise until the breadsticks are nearly doubled in size (about 1 1/2 hours). About 25 minutes before the dough has finished rising, remove the plastic, preheat your oven to 375°F.
Once the breadsticks have finished rising, place the baking sheet in the center of the preheated oven and immediately turn down the oven temperature to 350°F. Bake for 5 minutes. While the breadsticks are baking, melt the butter for the garlic butter in a small, microwave-safe bowl, then mix in the garlic salt. Remove the baking sheet from the oven and brush each breadstick generously with the garlic butter. Return the breadsticks to the oven and continue to bake until they are lightly golden brown all over (about another 5 minutes). Remove the breadsticks from the oven and brush again with garlic butter. Serve immediately.
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*Gluten-Free Bread Flour
Makes 1 cup (140 g) flour
100 grams (about 11 1/2 tablespoons) all-purpose gluten-free flour (see below) (71%)**
25 grams (about 5 tablespoons) unflavored whey protein isolate (18%)
15 grams (about 5 teaspoons) Expandex modified tapioca starch (11%)
**For the all-purpose gluten-free flour in Gluten-Free Bread Flour, you can use either the High-Quality All-Purpose Gluten-Free Flour (below) or the Make-It-Simpler All-Purpose Gluten-Free Flour (below that). For this recipe, the High-Quality All-Purpose Gluten-Free Flour is best. It is a copycat recipe for Better Batter gluten free flour, so that commercially-available gluten-free flour blend will also work well.
High-Quality All-Purpose Gluten-Free Flour
Makes 1 cup (140 g) flour
42 grams (about 1/4 cup) superfine brown rice flour (30%)
42 grams (about 1/4 cup) superfine white rice flour (30%)
21 grams (about 2 1/3 tablespoons) tapioca starch (15%)
21 grams (about 2 1/3 tablespoons) potato starch (15%)
7 grams (about 1 3/4 teaspoons) potato flour (5%)
4 grams (about 2 teaspoons) xanthan gum (3%)
3 grams (about 1 1/2 teaspoons) pure powdered pectin (2%)
***General Shaping Tips
-On a well-floured surface, pat the dough into a rectangle about 1/2 inch thick. For the breadsticks, the dough should be elongated to about 12 inches long. For a hoagie roll, the rectangle should be about 5 inches long.
-Fold the rectangle along the length from bottom and top, each fold halfway up the width of the rectangle. Fold the now smaller rectangle in half, each side just folded over one another.
-Roll the dough back and forth on the lightly floured surface to seal the edges and to elongate it slightly until the dough is nearly 16 inches long for baguettes, and about 7 inches long for hoagie rolls. For breadsticks, the dough should be approx. 8 inches long.”