Copy Cat- Rosemary Bread

Todays inspiration- Macaroni Grill. Their food is pretty tasty. But the best part of eating there for me is when the waiter writes their name in crayon on the butcher paper on your table. That really makes my restaurant visit exciting. I'm totally kidding- it's the bread!

Many restaurants have a free bread to start off with. A genius idea. Being a carb lover to the core, a free bread will push me to go eat at certain places. Seriously. I wish I was kidding.

The bread at Macaroni Grill is probably my favorite. It's amazing. I LOVE rosemary. Rosemary anything. So combining rosemary and bread? Whats not to like?

I scoured the internet for good recipes. Using my trusty method of reading the reviews, I came across this one. It has 264 reviews, all of them positive!

Ingredients:

1 Tbl yeast
1 Tbl sugar
1 cup warm water
2 and 1/2 cups flour
1 tsp salt
2 Tbl rosemary
2 Tbl butter

All pretty basic right? Except rosemary. I don't have that. Luckily, Walmart had my back. I bought this little pack here.

It was really expensive I think,  like $4. $4 for some twigs! Really? This was my first fresh herb experience. I'm seeing why people use dried herbs for things. But, go big or go home right?

I took a few sprigs ( I think that is what you are supposed to call twigs of herbs?) and plucked off the leaves with a finesse I've only witnessed on the Food Network.

Turns out chopping fresh herbs is harder than I thought. They aren't dry, so they are rubbery and kept moving all over. After many attempts, I had chopped enough.

Now that I have all my ingredients, I'm ready to go!

Except Claire ( my 18 month old) has done this to my kitchen.

 Does this happen to anyone else? Whenever I'm trying to do something in the kitchen, I end up tripping over Tupperware and kicking balls out of my way. After picking up tornado baby's destruction, and shooing her out of the kitchen, then I was ready to go.

Method:

1. Place yeast, sugar and water in large bowl and allow mixture to become bubbly. I used my trusty kitchen aid mixing bowl. This recipe calls for a ton of yeast. Like more than any recipe I've ever done. Yes, you read that right. 2 TABLESPOONS of yeast.

2. Mix in 1 tablespoon of butter, salt, and 2 and 1/2 cups of flour. The recipe doesn't specify melted or softened butter. So I met in the middle and did partially melted.

3. Add 1 tablespoon of the fresh chopped rosemary

4.Time to knead. I don't knead by hand. Like ever. I strapped on the paddle attachment to pink panther ( aka my kitchen aid mixer) and let it go to town. The recipe says knead for 10 min, but I find that excessive. I put my mixer on speed 2 and let it go for a while. Maybe like 5 min? The dough should look smooth and elastic. Like this.

6. Spray oil in a bowl, put dough in and cover with a towel. The picture above is after I'd transferred my dough to an oiled bowl. This is a sticky dough ( in my experience, most soft breads have a sticky dough). I used a spatula to scrap it all out of the mixer bowl and plop it into this plastic bowl. 

7. Let dough rise in a warm place until doubled, about 1 hour. I live in AZ. The whole state is a warm place. So on my counter top it sat. I set my timer for an hour and fuddled around my house. Boy did it rise! I should have expected this, based on the exorbitant amount of yeast. It was almost at the TOP of this bowl after 1 hour!

8. Turn out to a floured work surface, and divide in 1/2. This dough is sticky, so you will need a decently floured surface. It's like Goldilocks here- not too much flour otherwise it can dry out your bread. Not too little flour, or your bread will stick to the work surface making you have very angry emotions. I put a little flour on, spread it around and see how it does. If' it's still a bit sticky, I add a bit more. 

9. Spray a baking pan or cookie sheet with spray oil.

10. Shape dough into two round loaves. If you don't know how to shape dough, youtube it! I'm not kidding. I've spent more time than I'd like to admit watching videos on how to shape rolls and loaves. 

11. Sprinkle remaining 1 tablespoon of rosemary over the loaves, and lightly press into the surface. I decided to put both loaves on 1 cookie sheet. I' not sure why. Rookie mistake, considering I knew how much yeast was involved here. Sure they look fine now. But....

12. Let loaves rise again, about 45 min. Boy did they rise, again. And into each other a little bit which is not what I wanted. It wasn't terrible, but when I make this again I'll do two separate sheets to avoid them rising into each other in the future. 

13. Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

14. Spray loaves with misted water ( this will help making a crispy crust, if that is what you are going for) and put in the oven for 15-20 min, until lightly browned. I put mine in for about 18 ish. Personal preference here. 

15. Remove from oven, brush with remaining butter and sprinkle with sea salt. 

Umm....yum. 

And more yum.  Because of the airy nature of this bread, it works better if you just get in there and tear off a hunk. Cutting it squishes the loaf. 

We put some olive oil, balsamic vinegar and pepper in a dish and are in bread dipping heaven. 

Recipe pros and cons:

This bread is delish! There is a reason it has so many good reviews. And fairly easy as long as breads are concerned. Next time, I'll add more rosemary into the dough. I was nervous to add more. I didn't want an over powering rosemary flavor. And never having worked with fresh herbs before, I had no idea what I would get. I'm thinking if you are a rosemary lover like me, probably 1 and 1/2 tablespoons in the dough. This recipe makes 2 loaves, but they go really fast. Like they're both almost gone now. If more than just one person is eating it, I'd double the recipe to make sure everyone gets their fill. All and all, a keeper for sure. Now to just invest in a rosemary plant....

Recipe courtesy of Food.com