Cinnamon Grissini

Take a simple sweet dough, cut into thin strips, coat with butter, sugar and cinnamon and twist and bake. The longer the grissini the more elegant and breath-taking. They really make a statement standing tall in a canister for anytime snacking. Drizzled with a bright white vanilla icing, they become a chic party nibble.

Beyond their good looks there's also something wonderful about the satisfying "snap" these make as you bite into one of these sticks.





Cinnamon Grissini
20 long sticks

1 cup milk, lukewarm
1/3 cup sugar
1 pkg active dry yeast
1/3 cup butter, softened and cubed
3 1/2 cups flour
1/2 tsp salt

1/4 cup butter, melted
1/2 cup sugar
1 tbsp cinnamon

1. Dissolve sugar in warm milk. Add yeast, stir and let sit 5 mins or until slightly foamy. Add butter and mix with dough hook.

2. Mix 3 cups flour with salt. Add 1 cup at a time to mixer. Gradually add in 1/2 cup flour (if needed) to make dough come together into a ball that is slightly sticky but clings to the dough hook and pulls away from the sides of the bowl. Cover and let rise in warm place for 1 hr, until doubled.

3. Gently deflate risen dough. Turn onto lightly floured surface and roll out thin. Brush with a thin layer of butter. Not too much. Sprinkle with cinnamon sugar evenly.

4. With a pizza cutter cut the dough into thin strips. Pick up each strip of dough at the ends and gently stretch it then fold it in half to make it shorter. Pick it up and stretch it again, slightly twisting each end in opposite directions to give it the twisty look. Place on baking sheet and press ends down slightly to keep from unraveling.

5. Preheat the oven to 350F. Let the grissini rest while the oven is heating or while the prior batch is baking. Bake for 25 ? 30 minutes (longer for thicker grissini) until browned and very crisp. Cool on a wire rack.