breadsticks...or help! my bread didn't raise

Some in my family are Olive Garden fans.  Caitlin and I in particular like their Zuppa Toscana.  Their nearest restaurant is 90 minutes away so we don't often get there but when we do we usually have the soup, salad and breadsticks.

Olive Gardens has published some of their recipes on the web and we make Zuppa at home now.  I have been eating more soup lately and have been thinking a breadstick would be the perfect accompaniment.  Olive Garden makes a great breadstick.  A check of their website did not have a breadstick recipe but there are lots of copycat recipes out there.

I decided to try the Todd Wilbur recipe.  Todd Wilbur has written cookbooks and been on television with his copycat versions of restaurant favorites.  I am kind of a novice bread baker but recent attempts at whole wheat bread and pumpkin dinner rolls were successful so I was game to give it a try.

I have tried this recipe twice now.  With my first attempt I had already added the yeast to the water when I realized that I did not have enough bread flour.  All of the other recipes used all purpose flour but Todd felt that the bread flour was essential for this recipe.  I decided to go ahead, using the small amt of bread flour that I had and supplementing with all purpose.  The bread  dough was kind of stiff and didn't raise very well but I shaped it and baked it and vowed to try again after picking up some bread flour at the grocery store.  The breadsticks, once baked tasted okay, they were kind of dense but they had good flavor.

So attempt number two at  the Todd Wilbur copycat breadsticks was yesterday.  I followed the recipe using the requisite bread flour and set my dough to raise.  Nothing happened.  It did not raise.  90 minutes later I had the same lump of dough sitting in the bowl.

Google is my friend so I googled 'my bread didn't raise' and there were tons of hits.  Apparently I am not alone in the bread not raising department.  I picked several of the top sites and read thru the comments from people trying to help others with their bread issues and I learned a lot.

By far the most common suggestion was that it could have been dud yeast.  I checked for expiration date on my jar of yeast and mine was good.  And besides it worked not too long ago and I keep it in the refrigerator.

Another frequent comment was about the temperature of the liquid and the need to proof the yeast.  I have to admit that guessed on the temperature but I did proof the yeast and mine did get foamy.

There were some suggestions about how to rescue my dough so that I could still use it.  The method I chose was to make another batch of dough and cut up the 'bad' dough and incorporate it into the 'new' dough.  But first I did a bunch more reading.  Here are some things that I read.

• One commenter suggested that too much flour would make the dough stiff and it wouldn't raise as well.  hmm...my dough was stiff.
• One commenter suggested too much water when proofing the yeast could affect the raising.  hmm...my recipe called for more water than was suggested.
• One commenter suggested that she was a professional baker who still sometimes had trouble with raising dough and more often it was the recipes that used water instead of milk that failed to raise for her.   Did I want to try milk?
• There was an ongoing discussion about percent hydration and complicated formulas for how much liquid to flour ratios that was a little over my head but was interesting to read.
• One commenter suggested that maybe the house was too cool to encourage bread raising.  Probably not my only problem but I was trying to bake bread in an old farmhouse during a blizzard.
• One commenter recommended that she mixed her ingredients to wet her flour and then let is sit covered for a bit before she needed it to let the gluten start to form.  I could try that.
• And then the conversation in the comments turned to substituting one yeast for another.  I took another look at my yeast (rapid rise) and the recipe (active dry).  Hmmm.  I thought rapid rise yeast was just a faster form of active dry but it turns out that it is used in different ways.  You add it with the dry ingredients instead of proofing it and adding it with the liquid.
• There was also some discussion about the fat used but that discussion was from people from New Zealand(?) and they have different names for their fats apparently.  I decided not to worry about the half a stick of butter in my recipe just yet.

So here is what  I decided to do.  I would make another batch and when incorporating the last ingredients I would add the cut up chunks of 'bad' dough.  I would add the yeast with the dry ingredients and withhold part of the flour (I thought I would start with 1/2 cup less) and add it in if it seemed that the dough was just too sticky to work with.  I would check the temperature of the water.  I would let the dough rest for 20 minutes once the 'bad' chunks were incorporated and then knead.  And I would try to warm up the kitchen during the raising.

And it worked.  The breadsticks came out better than the first batch.  The dough raised both the first raising and the second raising once they were shaped.  The finished product was lighter and had a good flavor.  Were they perfect?  No.  Will I at anytime soon be competition for Olive Garden?  Not hardly.  I have a double batch of breadsticks that will last me a  while.  But I will try them again.  My shaping needs some work.  My breadsticks  are short and fat and more resemble a hotdog bun than a breadstick.  So I have some things to work on.  But I have a few in a cute storage jar in the pantry and a bunch more in the freezer.   I might by active dry yeast and give Todd's recipe another try but for how I will use up my rapid rise in this adapted recipe.

Copycat Olive Garden Breadsticks

2 Tbsp sugar

3/4 tsp rapid rise yeast

2 1/2-3 cups bread flour

1 1/2 tsp salt

1/4 cup (1/2 stick) softened butter

1 cup plus 1 Tbsp warm water

2 Tbsp melted butter 

1/2 tsp garlic salt

Combine the flour and the butter in a stand mixer with the paddle attachment and mix to incorporate the butter.  Add the yeast, sugar, and salt  and mix briefly to combine.  Add the warm  water and mix  until all of the dry ingredients are moist.  Remove the paddle attachment, cover the bowl and let it rest 20 minutes.  Attach  dough hook and knead for 10 minutes.  Let raise covered 60-90 minutes or until double in size.  Shape the dough by portioning into 12 or 13 two ounce pieces and roll between your hands or on the countertop to make a 7 inch long breadstick.  Place on a  parchment lined baking sheet and  cover and let raise another 60-90 minutes.  Bake 400° for 12 minutes.  When you take them out of the oven brush immediately with melted butter and sprinkle with garlic salt.


Recipes:

Todd Wilbur's recipe
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