If you have not found Pinterest, then you are really missing out. Pinterest is a website where you can store ideas you find online.  Once you find an idea, you can pin a picture of it to your board. Then the picture will link you back to where you found it.  The great thing about this site is that you can link up with friends and see what they are pinning and find even more ideas to pin on your boards.

I really liked having all of my Valentine’s Day ideas in one place and then when I was ready to figure out what Valentine’s we were making for school I could easily find them without having to go back and do a lot of searching.  I have also found a lot of great money saving ideas on Pinterest that I never would have found just searching online.

I will admit I’m sort of addicted to Pinterest and warn you that it is hard not to be.  You do have to get an invite from a friend who is already using Pinterest before using it, but don’t let that stop you, ask a friend.  I started a breads board on my Pinterest.  Last week, I got some time to try two of the bread recipes out.  I thought I’d share one of the recipes with you and my results.

Olive Garden Copy Cat Breadsticks

The first recipe I tried was the Olive Garden Breadsticks.  This is a copy cat recipe that has been floating around Pinterest and online.  I finally decided to give it a try one night when I was making a lasagna dinner for my family.  The recipe I found on Pinterest was made using a stand mixer.  I wanted to give it a try in my bread machine to see if it would turn out that way as well.  I am happy to say that it did.  I have made homemade hotdog buns and the shaping for these breadsticks was really similar. So I took a recipe I found on Pinterest and changed to fit my needs.  You can find the original recipe here, if you want to make it in a stand mixer.

Olive Garden Copy Cat Breadsticks Recipe

Ingredients

Dough

1½ cups hot water ($0.00)

2 tablespoons butter, softened ($0.20)

4 cups flour ($0.60)

2 tablespoons sugar ($0.10)

1 tablespoon salt

1 tablespoon yeast (I used bread machine yeast) ($0.25)

 

Topping

3 tablespoons butter, melted ($0.30)

Sea salt

¼ teaspoon garlic powder ($0.03)

 Directions

Place dough ingredients in the bread machine pan in the order listed.  Set machine to the dough cycle.  When the dough cycle is completed, roll the dough out into a long log and cut the dough into 12-14 pieces.  You can spray your knife with cooking spray, but I found that I really did not need  to do that.  Roll those pieces into long snakes. Don’t worry too much about being perfect, they all will be different.  Spray two cookie sheets with cooking spray, and lay the breadsticks about 2 inches apart.  Preheat your oven to 170 degrees and turn your oven light on if you have one.  Place the cookie sheets into the preheated oven to rise for about 15 minutes, or until doubled in size.

Before Rising:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

After rising:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Once risen, brush them with the melted butter leaving some butter for finishing the sticks and sprinkle the bread sticks with sea salt.  Return them to the oven and set your oven to 400 degrees.  Once your oven is preheated to 400 you need to bake the breadsticks for 12-15 minutes, or until golden brown.  I left my breadsticks in while the oven was preheating and mine were done in about 5 minutes, so make sure you check them during this process as they may brown quicker.  While they are baking, combine the rest of the melted butter with the garlic powder.  When the breadsticks are golden brown take them out of the oven and brush them with the butter/garlic mixture. Serve warm.

 My Review

I really liked that I was able to make these in my bread machine.  It made the process really easy.  While I do not know if they are exactly like Olive Garden’s breadsticks, they sure were good.  My kids and husband loved them, so we will be making these again!  I liked that this recipe only made enough for two for each person in my family of six.  In the restaurant it can be quite tempting with the basket on the table to eat more than that.  I also like how making these is cheaper than going out and still getting a restaurant like dinner at home.  These are also cheaper to make than buying a loaf of frozen garlic bread that we would have used before and taste so much better!

For more bread recipes visit my bread board on Pinterest.