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Breadsticks

Ingredients:

  • 630 g Water at 30°C
  • 1 tbs Honey
  • 1 tsp Dried yeast or equivalent quantity fresh yeast
  • 500 g Strong white bread flour
  • 500 g Type 55 French bread flour (if available, otherwise use 1kg strong white)
  • 50 ml Olive oil
  • 20g Sea salt
  • 4 tbs Malt syrup for poaching
  • 3 tbs Caraway seeds
  • 5 tbs Sesame seeds
  • 3 tbs Chopped rosemary
  • Coarse salt for coating

Method:

  1. Mix the honey into the water in a large mixing bowl, stir in the yeast and leave for 10 minutes until frothy.
  2. Add the salt, the olive oil and the strong white flour (or 500g of it, if not using Type 55) and stir until absorbed. Leave for 60 minutes until it's good and bubbly.
  3. Add the remaining flour and mix until wetted, then leave to rest for 20 minutes.
  4. Knead until smooth, pausing frequently to rest the dough, then divide dough into 3 equal portions.
  5. Preheat the oven to 200°C
  6. Knead half the caraway seeds into one portion, half the sesame seeds into another and half the rosemary into the third.
  7. Leave to rest, covered, for 30 minutes then divide into 20g pieces and roll into smooth balls.
  8. Half fill a large roasting dish with boiling water, add the malt syrup and set on the hob at a low simmer.
  9. Sprinkle some of the sesame seeds onto a large baking sheet with a *little* coarse salt.
  10. Roll each sesame dough ball into a long string a little less than 1 cm thick.
  11. Once you have about 10-12 sticks ready, drop them into the poaching pan (either one by one, or in batches if you're dextrous) and allow them to puff up and float - about 1 minute.
  12. Lift them out with a slotted spoon and roll them *gently* in the sesame seeds and salt, then lay them on baking paper.
  13. Bake on the upper oven shelf for 15 minutes or until just beginning to form brown spots.
  14. Continue in batches with the rest of the sesame dough, then the caraway and rosemary doughs with their respective coatings. As each batch is half done, move it to the lower shelf to make room for the next batch and speed up the baking.
  15. Once baked, the breadsticks can be refreshed in the oven in much larger batches the next day.