breadsticks

Come on, who could resist a breadstick in a shape vaguely approximating a wheat stalk? A person with a wheat-allergy, that's who.

A dough fortified with egg and milk consisting of 1/4 to 1/3 whole wheat was whirled in the Cuisinart food processor. Two cups flour total including a teaspoon of sugar, a teaspoon of sea-salt, a teaspoon of dry active yeast and two profligate rounded  heaping teaspoons of dry Italian mixed herbs,  and then 1 cup liquid total including egg, milk, and hot water, poured through the feed tube. The sticky dough was adjusted with w/w flour by the tablespoon full one at a time between processing pulses, upwards to five. The dough removed and further kneaded by hand but not on a work surface. The dough had become too stiff so it was adjusted further by simply stretching the dough under hot tap water and working the dough in the manner of a child playing with a mud pie until the desired balance between stiffness/wetness was achieved, which turned out to be three compete douses. Now I ask you, who in their right mind makes bread dough this way? The dough would be expected to hold its shape so that means a little bit on the stiff side, or to error on the side of stiffness if error one must. 

I never snipped dough with scissors before. Initially I was visualizing alternating offset snips, but when it came right down to doing the snipping, I didn't concern myself with alternate spacing like a checkerboard, but rather just went straight down the row, snip snip snip snip snip snip snip snip snip snip until the row was complete then onto the opposite row counting on the snips appearing to be random. Then the top, then the bottom, knowing that the row on the bottom would become flattened either way. The trick, if there is one, is to  screw up the snip a little bit, to lift the snipped piece away from the stalk to give the appearance of a grain separating. I learned you can dig fairly deep into the dough without much harm. 

Maybe next time will be better.