Grissini Lab!

Here we go, our first lab of the semester! We’re starting out the year by making grissini, a twisted Italian breadstick with sesame seeds that puts the Olive Garden’s to shame!

Ingredients:

1/3 cup warm water

• 1/2 teaspoon honey
• 1/2 package (a scant 1/2 tablespoon) rapid rise instant yeast (share the other half of the package with another group)
• 3/4 cup all-purpose flour (use the stir/scoop/sweep method you just practiced.)
• 1/4 cup of another flour. Each group will choose a different flour, and at least one group should use all-purpose flour entirely (this provides us with a control or standard to compare against). Make certain to record your flour type on your report.
• 1 & 1/2 tablespoons good extra-virgin olive oil
• 3/4 teaspoons salt
• Oil for the bowl

1. We started out by heating up our water for 30 seconds to get it warm, and put a bowl over it to keep the heat from escaping while we went about the other processes
2. We measured out ¼ cup of rye flour, and ¾ cup of All Purpose Flour
3. Once we got a food processor, we combined the rye and all purpose flour with a scant half tablespoon of yeast we added a ¾ teaspoon of salt.
4. After pulsing the mixture for about a minute, we added 1 and ½ tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil and ½ teaspoon of honey.
5. We let this mixture come together in the food processor, adding scants amount of water to assist it in coming together and pulling away from the sides of the bowl. We kneaded the dough in the processor for about a minute.
6. We then transferred our dough into a bowl sprayed with non-stick cooking spray and rubbed it with olive oil. We then covered the dough with a dish towel and let it sit undisturbed for one hour.
7. We preheat the oven to 410 degrees (the oven calls for 425 degrees, but our oven runs hot) and we prepared 2 baking sheets by putting parchment paper on them.
8. Once the dough had finished rising, we turned it out onto our cutting board and shaped the dough into a rough flat triangle.
9. We then cut a finger-width piece with a sharp knife and rolled it into a long, thin, irregular shaped snake.
10. We placed the dough snakes ½ inch apart on the baking sheet, added seeds and twisted them and we let the grissini rest for 15 minutes so they could puff up.
11. We placed the grissini into the oven and let it cook for about 10 minutes, rotating after five minutes.
12. We kept a careful eye on our thin grissini so they would not burn!
13. We took our golden brown grissini out of the oven and transferred them to a cooling rack.
14. We exchanged grissini with other groups until we had a sample of each type of flour!
15. We sampled the delicious results and compared the textures of each breadstick!

Flour Types

There were 4 possible flour types to use in this recipe: All Purpose, Cake, Bread, and Rye. Bread flour has the most protein and is the strongest, and cake flour has the least and is thus, the weakest. All Purpose is right in the middle in terms of strength and protein. Each flour has a different function and we sought to see how they’d fair mixed with water.

Of the 3, cake flour was the most watery, and had a soup-like consistency, sloshing around the inside of the paper bowl. This flour/water mixture was almost unable to be needed, as it was so watery. This flour is loose and has 2 grams of protein.

All Purpose flour faired better. This dough was pliable and flexible, and able to be kneaded and pressed. It had a chewy deliciousness and a very soft texture.

Bread flour made the stiffest dough and held its shape the best. This dough was able to be kneaded into a ball. It is high in protein and the breadstick had a very strong texture. Bread flour has the most protein, and as the name implies, is best suited to making dense and delicious breads.

It is no surprise cake flour is best suited for baking – cakes and other confections are made with this flour to create light and fluffy sweets. The cake flour breadstick had a very tender and soft texture. This is due to its low protein content.

Rye flour had the darkest color and the deepest flavor of all the breadsticks. The rye dough was wet, but held its shape. Rye flour made for a very crisp and flavorful breadstick. In our opinion, breadsticks made with rye flour rye-se to the top!