Whole Wheat Garlic Bread Sticks

These are slightly different from my other garlic bread recipe, and made a very good addition to a meal containing beef stroganoff and salad with a super simple vinaigrette. They did not brown as much as I would have hoped for, but they tasted really good at least.

Garlic Bread Sticks

Yield: 16 large bread sticks

Ingredients:

4 1/2 cups whole wheat flour, plus extra if the dough is sticky
2 cups warm water
1 1/2 tbsp yeast
1 tsp salt
2 tbsp rosemary and oregano olive oil (*NOTE* you can use dried rosemary and oregano with regular olive oil)
3 tbsp garlic

Preparation:

Combine yeast and warm water in a mixing bowl, let sit while sauteing the garlic for the bread. Once the garlic is sauteed, add it to the water and yeast mixture. Add remaining ingredients. Mix on slow speed until ingredients are incorporated, then increase to medium speed for 5 minutes.

Pull dough out of the bowl and form into a ball. Coat the mixing bowl in olive oil to prevent the dough from sticking as it rises. Return the dough to the bowl and place in a warm spot to rise until doubled in size (note that inside an oven with only the light on works well).

Once the dough has doubled in size, remove the dough from the oven and divide the dough into the desired number of portions. Form the dough into the bread sticks and place on a pan with space between each. Allow the bread sticks to rise until they are touching.

 
Once the bread sticks have rise so they are touching, preheat the oven to 380 degrees F. If the bread sticks were rising in the oven, move them to the counter at this point.

Bake for 12-15 minutes or until they sound hollow when you knock on them (this is a tell-tale sign that any bread product is done baking).

Before serving the bread sticks, preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. While the oven is preheating spread garlic butter on the tops of the bread sticks. I used garlic butter with a shredded cheese blend containing asiago, romano, and parmesan cheeses.