High Altitude Soft Garlic Bread Sticks
Soft and fluffy garlic bread sticks, with an easy homemade pizza sauce for dipping.
All recipes on Curly Girl Kitchen are developed for high altitude at 5,280 feet. See FAQs for adjusting to higher or lower elevations.
Equipment
- Stand Mixer with Dough Hook
- Small Saucepan
- Medium-Sized Bowl
- 2 Baking Sheets + Parchment Paper
Ingredients
Tangzhong
- 3 tbsp water
- 3 tbsp whole milk
- 2 tbsp bread flour
Dough
- 4 tbsp unsalted butter
- 1 cup milk or water
- 1 packet (2 1/4 tsp) active dry or instant/rapid rise yeast
- 2 tbsp granulated sugar, divided
- 3 cups bread flour, fluffed, spooned and leveled
- 1 tsp coarse Kosher salt (if using table salt, use half the amount)
- ¼ tsp garlic powder
- ¼ tsp onion powder
Garlic Butter
- 4 tbsp unsalted butter, melted
- ¼ - ½ tsp coarse Kosher salt (if using table salt, use half the amount)
- ¾ tsp garlic powder
- ¾ tsp dried Italian seasoning
Pizza Sauce
- 15 oz can tomato sauce
- 6 oz can tomato paste
- 1 tbsp dried Italian seasoning
- ¼ tsp garlic powder
- ¼ tsp onion powder
- ¼ tsp ground black pepper
- ¾ tsp coarse Kosher salt (if using table salt, use half the amount)
- 1 tsp granulated sugar
Instructions
Make the Tangzhong
- In a small saucepan, whisk together the water, milk and flour. Cook over medium heat for several minutes, whisking constantly, until it thickens into a paste.
- Remove from the heat, scrape the tangzhong into a small bowl, and set aside until needed.
Make the Dough
- In the same saucepan you used to make the tangzhong (no need to wash the pan first), melt the butter over medium heat. Stir in the milk or water, and warm the mixture just until it reaches between 110-115 degrees Fahrenheit.
- Remove from the heat. Stir in the yeast and 1 tablespoon of sugar. Let sit for a few minutes until it starts to get bubbly.
- In the bowl of your stand mixer, combine the flour with the remainder of the sugar, the warm yeast mixture, the cooled tangzhong, salt, garlic powder and onion powder.
- With the dough hook, knead the dough for 10 minutes.. The dough should be soft and smooth, and will wrap around the dough hook, but may still stick to the bottom of the bowl. Don't be tempted to add more flour, though, or the bread sticks will be dense.
- Scrape the dough into a lightly oiled bowl. Cover the bowl tightly with plastic wrap, and set in a warm place to rise until doubled in size. This could take anywhere from 45-90 minutes, depending on the freshness/brand of yeast, and how warm your kitchen is.If your oven has a bread proof setting, you can use that. Otherwise, preheat your oven to the lowest setting, turn it off, then set the dough inside to rise.
Shape the Bread Sticks
- Get two baking sheets ready by lining them with parchment paper. Then make the garlic butter, by stirring together the melted butter with the salt, garlic powder and Italian seasoning.
- Turn the dough out onto a floured surface, and lightly flour the top of the dough, too. Gently press the air out of the dough, then roll the dough out into a rectangle, measuring approximately 14x18 inches.
- Brush the dough with half the garlic butter, then fold the dough in half. Use a rolling wheel pastry cutter to cut the dough into 12 strips. Twist each strip a few times, then place the twisted bread sticks on the baking sheets, 6 on each baking sheet. Brush the rest of the garlic butter over the bread sticks.
- Cover the pans loosely with a clean kitchen towel, and set aside to rest for about 20 minutes, while you preheat the oven.
Bake the Bread Sticks
- Preheat the oven to 375 F, and position two racks in the upper and lower thirds of the oven.
- Bake the bread sticks for about 25-30 minutes, rotating the pans halfway through, until golden brown and baked through.
- Let cool for a few minutes on the pan, then serve warm with the pizza sauce.
Pizza Sauce
- To make the pizza sauce, simply whisk together all the ingredients until combined. Taste and adjust the salt/spices as desired.
- You can gently warm the sauce on the stove over medium low heat, stirring it frequently so it doesn't splatter.
- Freeze leftover pizza sauce for up to 3-6 months. I like to make a big batch of the sauce, then divide it between half pint jam jars to freeze it for pizza nights at home.
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