"Olive Garden" Breadsticks

When I was sampling cooking magazines earlier this summer, I bought a copy of Food Network Magazine. I was insipred by our time drooling over that restaurant recipe rip-off book in Barnes and Noble, and I remembered cutting out a Food Network Test Kitchen recipe for copycat Olive Garden breadsticks. Although I don't really bake (and this post will prove why...) I just had to give it a shot.

Ingredients:

DOUGH

• 1 package active dry yeast
• 4-1/4 cups all-purpose flour, plus more for dusting
• 2 T unsalted butter, softened
• 2 T sugar
• 1 T fine salt

TOPPING

• 3 T unsalted butter, melted
• 1/2 t kosher salt
• 1/4 t garlic powder
• Pinch of dried oregano

Recipe:

1. Make the dough: Place 1/4 cup warm water in the bowl of a mixer; sprinkle in the yeast and set aside until foamy, about five minutes. Add the flour, butter, sugar, fine salt and 1-1/4 cups plus 2 tablespoons warm water; mix with the paddle attachment until a slightly sticky dough forms, 5 minutes. (And here is where my issues began. I've never worked with yeast before, and after the 5 minutes, it didn't seem that foamy. I let it sit a while longer, and it still looked kinda lame. But I have no idea what it's supposed to look like, so I just ran with it in this state...)Also, I didn't have a paddle attachment for my mixer, so I just used regular beaters. As I was mixing it, the sticky dough insisted on climbing the beaters toward my hand. I tried to keep it at bay with a spatula, but it ended up clogging my hand mixer where the beaters meet the base, and effectively broke the poor little machine. It still doesn't work, despite my repair efforts. It broke down about three minutes into the dough mixing, so that was all I could do. Here's what it looked like:
2. Knead the dough by hand on a floured surface until very smooth and soft, 3 minutes. Roll into a 2 foot long log; cut into 16 1-1/2 inch long pieces. Knead each piece slightly and shape into a 7 inch long breadstick; arrange 2 inches apart on a parchment lined baking sheet. Cover with a cloth; let rise in a warm spot until almost doubled, about 45 minutes. (I didn't have parchment paper, a sufficient number of baking sheets, or patience, so I just roughly molded them into fat misshapen logs and slapped them on two sheets lined with Pam-covered tin foil. Luckily, they did rise in the 45 minutes.)
3. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Make the topping: Brush the breadsticks with 1-1/2 tablespoons of the butter and sprinkle with 1/4 teaspoon of the kosher salt. (Here they are before meeting the oven. Poor ugly things...they're like the Elephant Man of breadsticks.)Bake until lightly golden, about 15 minutes. Meanwhile, combine the remaining 1/4 teaspoon salt with the garlic powder and oregano (I know for a fact there is nothing green atop the real OG breadsticks, so I skipped the oregano). Brush the warm breadsticks with the remaining 1-1/2 tablespoons melted butter and sprinkle with the flavored salt. (The end!)

In conclusion...never again. 'Twas a pain in my rear and killed my mixer. Basically, I was ill-equipped to tackle this recipe. The breadsticks got a little over-done on the bottom and were pretty dry. I mean, they tasted okay, but nothing like Olive Garden. In the future, if I ever want to serve OG-like breadsticks, I'll just buy the Pillsbury "Italian Breadsticks" in the tube, and brush them with butter, kosher salt, and garlic powder when they come out of the oven. Or, I'll just go to Olive Garden. But, as I said, baking is definitely not my forte. But I'm sure this recipe is legit, so feel free to give it a shot!

Man, now I want to go to Olive Garden and get the real deal...mmmm....breadsticks!