Bread Sticks or Pizza Crust

Okay, this is another favorite recipe of mine from an old ward cookbook. The credit goes to a lady in my ward named Julie Thorngren. Thanks, Julie! It's been over 15 years since I was in that ward -- I can't remember her, but her breadsticks are DELICIOUS. All four of my children love them. In fact, if you have teenagers you might need to make a double batch!

1 1/2 cups warm water

1 Tbsp. yeast (or one package)

2 Tbsp. sugar

Combine the first three ingredients. Stir a little, then let it sit for about 5 minutes to let the yeast start to activate. 

Add:

1/2 tsp. salt

3 1/2 cups flour

Mix in about 2 1/2 cups of the flour and stir. Gradually add the remaining flour until soft and sticky. Knead 5-10 minutes. Let rise about 10 minutes.

At this point you could roll it out onto a pizza pan basted with olive oil and sprinkled with cornmeal and go from there, but for breadsticks here's what you do:

Melt most of a cup of butter (yes!) on a cookie sheet. Roll out dough and cut into 1 inch strips. Dip strips in butter* and twist together. Sprinkle with parsley, garlic, and Parmesan cheese. Bake at 400 degrees for about 15 minutes or until golden brown (mine are usually done in about 12 minutes in my oven). This recipe makes about a dozen BIG breadsticks, 

depending on how thin you roll out the dough (I do about 3/8").

 *Dipping the strips in butter takes awhile and gets pretty messy, so I like to cut the strips, twist them together and lay them on the cookie sheet that has the butter melted on the bottom of it (so that coats the bottom of the breadsticks). Then, I take a basting brush and dab up some of the butter from the cookie sheet and coat the top of the breadsticks with it. The butter is what makes it SO yummy!