PARMESAN STICKS

Leia em PORTUGUÊS

Numerology must have a good explanation for this date and time, but while I'm trying to find it out, the least I could do was a calendar with delicious Parmesan sticks that will be posted at exactly eleven hours, eleven minutes and eleven seconds of the eleventh day of November, two thousand and eleven.

Good luck to all on this special day!!

PARMESAN STICKS

Ingredients:

for the dough:

3/4 cup whole wheat flour

1 tbsp butter at room temperature

1 egg, lightly beaten and divided in two equal parts

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 cup milk (at room temperature or lightly warm)

1 tsp baking powder

1/2 cup all purpose flour (approximately)

topping:

50g good quality Parmesan cheese

freshly ground black pepper to taste

paprika to taste

In a bowl, whisk together the dry ingredients for the dough. Add butter, half of the egg and milk. Stir vigorously with a wooden spoon.

Add all purpose flour, gradually, until it comes together and gets difficult to stir with the spoon.

Transfer the dough to a floured surface and knead, adding bits of flour as needed, until you have a soft ball of dough that does not stick.

Cover with a plastic wrap and let it rest for about 15 minutes.

Preheat the oven at 390°F (200°C).

Roll out the dough into a 12"X 12" (30cm X 30cm) square.

Lay the dough over a piece of parchment paper slightly larger.

Brush the surface of the dough with the remaining egg (you might not need all of it)

Sprinkle Parmesan cheese, black pepper and paprika to taste.

Using a pizza cutter, cut thin strips of dough. You don't have to separate them.

Transfer the parchment with the dough to a baking sheet.

Bake at 390°F (200°C) for roughly 15 minutes or until the cheese has melted and it is lightly golden.

Remove from the oven and cut again with the pizza cutter, on the same lines you had cut before, in order to separate the sticks.

Cool on a wire rack.

If you want crunchier sticks, as soon as you finish separating them, return them to the oven (which will still be hot, but turned off) and leave them in there to dry.