Best. Breadsticks. Ever.

I tried out this recipe for bread sticks on the Food Network website a few weeks ago, they are to DIE for! I never knew homemade could be so good. :)

What You'll Need:

Dough:

1 package yeast (or 2 1/4 tsp of yeast)

1 1/2 cups plus 2 tbsp of water (divided)

4 1/4 cups flour (I used bread flour)

2 tbsp butter (or olive oil)

2 tbsp sugar

1 tbsp salt (you can skip this if you used salted butter)

Topping:

4 tbsp butter (give or take)

Salt and garlic powder to taste

Pinch of oregano (I just did fresh chopped parsley, just for color)

Grated Parmesan cheese

Add 1/4 cup of water and 2 1/2 tsp of yeast to your mixing bowl. Let it sit for about 5 minutes to dissolve.

To that, add the remaining 1 1/4 cups plus 2 tbsp of water, flour, butter, sugar, and salt.

With your dough hook, mix until it creates a dough, about 3 minutes. Place your dough on a floured surface and knead it by hand for another 3-5 minutes.

Using a knife or plastic board scraper, divide your dough into equal parts. If you're only making bread sticks, divide it into 16 equal parts. I'm making pizza and bread sticks, so I divided it in half, and then divided the one half into 8 pieces.

Melt about 2 tbsp butter.

Roll your bread sticks out into approximately 7 inch long sticks.

Brush your bread sticks with the melted butter. I added this step because I noticed that this dough tends to get a crust on it pretty fast. The butter keeps that from happening. It also creates a nice golden crisp crust on the bottom of the bread sticks once they're baked.

Place your bread sticks in a warm spot. I like to preheat my oven to 200 degrees and then turn it off. Once the temp comes down to about 90-100 degrees, I put the dough in to rise, this seems to speed the process.

Once the dough has risen to about double, take it out of the oven and preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Bake for about 15 minutes, or until golden brown on top.

While the bread sticks are baking, make your butter topping. Melt the butter, and add to it the chopped herbs, salt, and garlic powder.

Once they're done baking, brush on the butter mix, and sprinkle with parm cheese.