The Bread Bible - Spicy Herbed Breadsticks

It's been so long since I've blogged or baked anything from the Bread Bible. It's really hard to get back into the swing of things but I think I've just got to grasp the nettle, yank off the bandaid and get back on the horse etc, etc. And what better way to start back than with some alien fingers, aka Spicy Herbed Breadsticks. It's so long ago I have almost no memory of making these although I do remember I had to make them in my toaster oven so they're a bit shorter then the recipe suggests. 

They were a bit fiddly (i.e. you have to roll them out and cut them up) which always tests my patience. Also I used semolina to dust the bench when rolling them out and it was probably a bit too coarse (it was just what I had in the pantry). I'm not sure I did justice to the recipe but they were very crunchy and surprisingly spicy (Why a surprise, you ask, given the name? I think it was the degree of spiciness that I didn't expect.) I don't think I'd make them again - if I'm having people over these days I prefer to buy this kind of thing and concentrate on making the main dishes myself. 

Next on the list to try is Mediterranean Matzoh. I like matzoh and I'm sure these would be tasty but they're not yeasty bread...which is precisely why I got stuck at this point in the Bread Bible bake-through list. I intended to skip them but found that difficult too and so here we are at an impasse. Obviously I need some sort of therapy but I think I'll just try and push through, so next up is not bread but cake - Cinnamon Crumb Surprise. My favourite type of cake (apart from all the other types which are also my favourite). See you soon.

Bread Bible - Herb Spiral Bread

I have a few breads to make (four to be exact) to catch up with the Bread Bible Bakers' monthly schedule. I got a bit behind at the end of last year. I did make this herb version of the Cinnamon Spiral Bread last year just before I went interstate for Christmas. And when I say just before, I mean a few hours before I caught the plane. Which is why I forgot to take a photo of the finished bread.

I made the cinnamon version for the Baking Bible bake-through so I decided to try the herb alternative. It's a very easy bread to make and I didn't have any problems either time. I used a mixture of spring onion, chives and parsley in the spiral but it turned out to be too oniony (my own fault for using both chives and spring onion). I think it would have been better with cream cheese or something else to smooth out the herby taste.

This is a nice bread but, as a savoury bread, it's not really sturdy enough for my taste. I really like the rustic rip-it-apart-with-your-bare-teeth kind of bread. I'm looking forward to making the hearth bread the beginning of which is currently fermenting in my fridge. But up next on the blog will be the Irish Soda Bread.