Roasted Garlic and Rosemary Bread

I wanted to try roasting garlic as well as make some bread so I went on an internet recipe hunt. I found two different blogs that were entertaining and easy to follow recipes for both.

For the roasted garlic, check out my previous post that includes a link to the site where I found the recipe.

This is the blog post I found for an easy rosemary garlic bread recipe to rival that of Macaroni Grill.

Rosemary Bread recipe link to My Man's Belly

I did a few things differently – possibly on accident…

For starters, I wanted to cut the recipe in half. After all, this is my first time making it and I didn’t want to “waste” the extra yeast, flour, rosemary and garlic if it turned out horrible.

I had “rapid rise” yeast packets on hand. One packet equals 2 ¼ tsps.

How did I figure this out? 1) the packet said it equaled about 2 ¼ tsps. and I know 3 tsp. equal one TBSP.

1 TBSP = 3 tsp

½ TBSP = 1 ½ tsp

So the recipe called for 1 ½ TBSP of yeast as well as salt – which equals 4 ½ tsps. Cutting that in half, I get 2 ¼ tsps.

It also calls for 3 TBSPS of fresh rosemary, halved equals 4 ½ tsps. or 1 TBSP and 1 ½ tsp.

Does your brain hurt from that entire section of fraction math we just completed? Do you have a child that struggles with fractions? Get them in the kitchen. Seriously. They are learning at the same time they are making food to eat so it will not occur to them that they are doing “Math”…but it may cause an “a-ha” moment on their next test! (Off the mini soap box)

I did not read the instructions correctly and added the salt in with the flour and rosemary instead of adding the salt in with the water and yeast. It did not seem to make a difference and this could be because my yeast was “rapid rise” and not regular yeast.

As I was trying to rough chop the roasted garlic I noticed the bits were all sticking together. So I put a small amount of the flour mixture in a small, ½ cup dish or measuring cup. As I chopped the garlic, I put the pieces into the small dish to coat them with flour so they would not all stick together. I wanted to make sure they would be dispersed throughout the bread and not end up in one large clump.

One thing I do with all my dry ingredients – regardless of what I am baking – is to stir them together and get the baking powder, salt, flour, whatever – evenly distributed. This is something I’ve always done. I don’t know if it’s all that important and I often do not see chefs on TV take this step. Maybe that’s part of the reason why many people say their baking never turns out the same as so-and-so’s…just a thought.

This bread is a “no knead” bread and does not require that you have a KitchenAid Mixer with a dough hook…though that is something on my ultimate kitchen wish list…

Sometimes your utensils make a difference. I use glass bowls to mix in and I have bamboo “spatulas” that I use because I do not have a wooden spoon to stir with (another item on the wish list).

I live in Southern California and the weather is often so nice, I never close the windows. To have a space warm enough for the dough to rise properly, I microwaved a damp sponge for about 10 seconds and then put my covered dough in and let rise for 2 hours. I did not microwave the dough – just the sponge to create a little bit of a warm and humid environment so the dough would rise.

After I baked the bread, I brushed extra virgin olive oil on the tops and lightly sprinkled with sea salt.  I had to taste one after it cooled for a bit. I mixed together a little bit of olive oil, salt, and pepper to dip the bread in. I seriously almost stood there in the kitchen and ate the whole loaf. Well, the loaves are not very large any way. I made two loaves and put one in the freezer.

I tried making this bread again but froze the dough before I baked it to see which worked better: freezing uncooked dough or freezing the bread after it baked. Well, this is one bread dough you are better off baking first before freezing. I found the freezing and then baking affected the height or rise of the bread during baking.