Easy Garlic Bread From Scratch

I promised you two recipes, here's the first.

This is the easiest garlic bread short of buying it from the freezer section. We've all tasted it, we know the freezer box garlic bread is good, but who doesn't want to just absolutely WOW friends at the dinner party? Besides, this is super easy and completely worth it. I got this from Food.com AND they have a feature that allows you to adjust the portion depending on how much you want to make. I only made one loaf of the artisan bread and that required no refrigeration, but you can use that website to go about it however you like.

Here's What I Did:

3/4 cup lukewarm water
3/8 tablespoon granulated yeast (2 packets)
3/8 tablespoon kosher salt or 3/8 tablespoon other coarse salt
1 5/8 cups flour, unsifted, unbleached, all-purpose (not strong)


I combined it all in my mixer with the dough hook attachment. If you don't have a KitchenAid stand mixer, my heart aches for you. But you can still do this by hand. My instructions include the mixer.

Add the yeast, warm water (straight from the sink worked for me), and salt. Let that sit for about 10 minutes which allows the yeast to work its magic, then add the flour. All at once, then set that mixer to 2 until the dough pulls from the side. 

When you get the dough off the hook, it should look like this. **PRO TIP coat your hands in flour, it keeps the dough from sticking to your fingers.** 

Next, roll that dough into a little ball. You'll want to cover the bowl for about two hours and let it set on the counter to rise. Go check the mail, run errands, handle business, let the dough be. 

Once the dough has risen in size, coat it in flour. I let that sit for a minute as I greased up the pan. The recipe didn't call for it, but it seemed like a good idea. 

Grease up that pan all nice and oily like...

Then manipulate that little ball into a long loaf. It looks tiny now but never fear, my dear, it shall rise. 

Now, this seems silly, but it works. Put that oven to 425 and add a broiler pan (or cake pan) full of water. Trust me, the steam keeps that bread nice and moist. 

As the oven heats, let that dough rise a little more. Coat it in olive oil and cut some slits in it. Mine weren't deep enough, but it made for a crispier crust. Then throw that baby in the oven! The recipe called for 30mins, but my oven only needed 25 and it got a little too brown.

Voila! Artisan bread.

Let it rest, my darling. Now, you could stop here and make a killer BLT... but I'm trying to impress dinner party friends with an Italian menu sooo...

I cut that hunky loaf into baguettes, or bites, or whatever you choose to call them. I covered them in butter and garlic salt, toasted them, then this is what happened...

For the love of all things joyful and true, this was some tasty garlic bread! BOOM!

And there you have it folks, tasty, easy, quick garlic bread. Or just sandwich bread. But my Lawd it was delicious!