#2,655: German Salt Sticks

We were sitting and chatting with Brian's grandpa (he's 92 I think!) and he mentioned that he used to walk to a bakery to get "salt sticks," and he was telling us that he hasn't had them in a long time and how much he used to love them.  That's all I needed to hear and I started searching for what "salt sticks" are when I got home.  I had no idea if I was making the right things, so I texted my mother-in-law half way though to get some guidance.  She suggested I make them thinner and add more toppings, and this is what I came up with.  I can't wait to take these to him and hope that they are even something close to what he remembers!

As I've mentioned before, I am not a fan of recipes that use yeast because I have such bad luck with yeast. I'm still not sure these are totally how they are supposed to be because my dough didn't rise nearly as much as I thought or hoped it would.  To us, these taste like regular homemade bread sticks with caraway on top.  My husband and kids scraped off the caraway seeds (shocker!) and ate these with butter.  My first batch of salt sticks were so large that I ended up giving them to the family to dip into pizza sauce with dinner.  

800 g flour, all purpose or bread flour (I used bread flour)

25 g fresh yeast or equivalent dry yeast amount (2 packages)

2 tsp salt

1/2 tsp sugar

60 g lard or butter, softened.  You also can use 50 g sunflower oil (I used 60 grams (half a stick) of butter)

420 ml water milk mix, lukewarm (I combined 230 ml of milk and 190 ml of water and warmed it in the microwave for 1 minute)

1 egg, mixed with water

sesame, caraway seeds, coarse salt

Place flour in a bowl.  Add yeast, milk-water mix, very soft butter, salt and sugar.  Mix well. 
Knead until the dough is smooth and shows some bubbles.
Place in an oiled bowl and cover with a plastic bag.  You can also use a moist kitchen cloth. Let raise until dough amount has doubled.

On a smooth surface sprinkled with some flour, knead dough again and fold it twice (see the original video how this is done if you are interested).

Let it rest for 10 min covered with moist cloth. Fold again. Let rest for 5 min more.

Cut the dough into equally sized pieces, and roll into either balls (to make rolls) or sticks.  

Let the formed rolls raise on a baking tray. (Mine did not rise any more!!)

Brush each with the egg-water mix, sprinkle with sesame, caraway or poppy seeds on top and sprinkle with sea salt.  You can also put in little cut crosswise through the tops of the dough.

Place a fire proof bowl with water in the oven. Bake the salt sticks in preheated oven on 425 F for 10 min, then reduce heat to 375 F and bake for another 10 min.