Olive Garden Bread Sticks

I love bread sticks.  It is a simple fact.  If I eat spaghetti, lasagna, fettuccine, soup, okay, pretty much anything!  Bread sticks make it better!  I came upon this recipe out of sheer luck.  Trolling websites one day, I found a very close recipe to Olive Garden's.  A few of my own little tweaks, and voila!  Bliss!

Olive Garden (or pretty close!) Bread Sticks
Dough:
1 1/2 cup warm water
2 tbsp sugar
1 tbsp yeast
1 tbsp salt (I know, it seems like a lot, but it is how I do it every time!)
2 tbsp butter, softened
4-5 cups flour

Topping:
3 tbsp butter, melted
sea salt
1 tsp garlic powder

 For the dough, sprinkle the sugar and yeast over the warm water.  Wait 5-10 minutes until the mixture looks milky, refer to the two pictures on the right.  

After the mixture has become milky, add the salt, butter and 2 cups of the flour.  Mix well, scrape edges of bowl before adding any more.

Add remaining flour 1/2 cup at a time until you have the consistency you want.  It should not stick to your fingers when you touch the dough, but you don't want to much flour or the sticks will be hard.  Once you have all the flour added, either knead with your mixer or by hand about 5 minutes.  Dough should be elastic and stretchy.  Spray inside of the bowl with cooking spray, flip dough over so it is all covered and place in a warm spot with a towel over the top to rise.  This process should take about an hour.  You want the dough to double in size.

Lightly flour your surface and roll out the dough by hand into one long log.

Spray your knife with cooking spray and cut log into 12-14 pieces.

Roll pieces into 6 inch long snakes and place on a cookie sheet that has been sprayed with cooking spray.  Be sure they are at least 2 inches apart.

Heat oven to 170 degrees (or if it is older like mine, the warm option!), place cookie sheets into oven and let the sticks rise for about 15 minutes.  Use half of the butter from the topping ingredients and brush each bread stick.  Sprinkle sea salt on top.  Bake at 400 degrees for 12-14 minutes.  Immediately remove and brush with remaining butter and garlic powder.  Enjoy!