Olive Garden Breadsticks.

Ingredients

• 1 1/2 cups warm water
• 1 packet active dry yeast
• 4 1/4 cups all purpose flour
• 2 Tbsp. unsalted butter melted
• 2 Tbsp. sugar
• 1 Tbsp. salt

Instructions

1. In a large bowl, dissolve sugar and yeast in warm water and allow to sit for 10 minutes, covered. Mixture should be frothy.
2. In separate bowl, combine flour and salt. Add to yeast mixture. Add melted butter. Mix with paddle attachment of stand mixer or wooden spoon until fully combined.
3. Knead dough for a few minutes just until dough is smooth. Do not overknead!
4. Grease a cookie sheet. Pull off pieces of dough and roll out into strips. Cover the dough and let sit in a warm place for 45 minutes to an hour.
5. Preheat your oven to 400 degrees F and once heated, pop in the bread sticks.
6. In microwave, combine the following: 1 stick unsalted butter (or 1/2 cup margarine), 2 teaspoons garlic powder and 1 teaspoons salt.
7. After bread sticks have cooked for 6 or 7 minutes, brush the bread sticks with half the butter mixture. Then continue to bake. Bake for 5-8 more minutes.
8. Immediately upon removal from the oven brush the other half of the butter on the sticks.Allow to cool for a few minutes before eating.

These were actually very easy to make. If you do try this recipe, my dough was smooth like it states in the directions, yet a little sticky. They did still rise later and I might try to make them less sticky to see if they rise just a little bit better and would be easier to roll. But, oh do these taste just like Olive Garden's! YUM. These would make great pizza sticks for kids too. I think I might get some mozzarella and pepperoni's to melt on them and then you could dip in marinara.  I got about 12 breadsticks from this recipe. Heidi gobbled one up pretty fast. Oh and I used just a little bit of the butter mix to brush on the breadsticks while they baked. I got a little too much garlic on some of them. Oh well. Next time I will try to make mine also a little nicer. The pic is mine this time and they look silly. But who cares, right. They will get eaten fast anyway. :)