Easy Garlic Bread Recipe (2024)

FAQs

Why is my garlic bread not crispy? ›

Additionally, make sure your garlic bread is toasted fairly quickly and at a high enough temperature. If it is toasted at a much lower temperature or sits for a longer time afterwards, it is more likely to melt and puddle and soak the butter into the bread before it finishes toasting.

Garlic bread (also called garlic toast) consists of bread (usually a baguette, sour dough, or bread such as ciabatta), topped with garlic and occasionally olive oil or butter and may include additional herbs, such as oregano or chives. It is then either grilled until toasted or baked in a conventional or bread oven.

Fresh herbs are the best, and you need less of them. I use lemon thyme, rosemary, sage, or parsley. Cumin works well in Middle Eastern breads. Cinnamon in sweet breads, or ginger, nutmeg, black pepper, cardamom, or a combination of those.

Use steam: To create steam in your oven, place a tray of hot water on the bottom rack of your oven or spray water on the sides and bottom of the oven right before putting the bread in the oven. The steam helps create a crisp crust on the bread.

So introducing steam actually helps slow crust formation while your dough finishes rising. Then, towards the end of your baking time, open up the oven to release the steam and finish baking to dry out and crisp your bread's crust.

It's parsley

Yep, the green flecks are finely-chopped parsley. Recipe after recipe calls for the addition of the herb to the top of the bread ―- and if Mary Berry says it's parsley, then parsley it surely is.

Bruschetta: From the Italian bruscare meaning "to roast over coals," this traditional garlic bread is made by rubbing slices of toasted bread with garlic cloves, then drizzling the bread with extra-virgin olive oil.

The proper term is “heel,” according to the Cambridge Dictionary. Some may call it just “the end piece” or “the butt” when going with true informality. Some Redditors even refer to them as the “crusts,” a double whammy for both the outside of each slice and the end of the loaf itself.

The best side dishes to serve with garlic bread are stuffed shells, eggplant parmesan, stuffed pepper soup, mushroom risotto, cheese dip, chili con carne, shrimp skewers, guacamole, caprese salad, tzatziki sauce, pulled pork, tomato soup, baked ziti, buffalo chicken dip, lemon garlic shrimp, beef stroganoff.

How do Italians eat garlic bread? ›

While we might know bruschetta as the toasted bread topped with garlicky chopped tomatoes that was often offered as an appetizer on many restaurant menus in the 1990s (via Cook In/Dine Out), in Italy, "bruschetta" typically refers to a thick slice of bread that's simply toasted, rubbed with cut garlic, doused in good ...

Spices: Adding spices like cumin, coriander, or fennel seeds can give bread a unique and delicious taste. Cheese: Grated cheese, such as cheddar, can be added to the dough to make cheese bread. Seeds: Adding seeds like sunflower, pumpkin, or sesame seeds can add a nice crunch and flavor to bread.

Several tasty ingredients like honey, olives and even bananas are used regularly to ramp up the classic bread recipe's flavor. Not only are these ingredients delicious, but when chosen wisely, they can also boost your bread's nutritional value.

Topping bread dough with seeds and grains is a simple and effective way to increase the nutrition, flavor, and texture in a baked loaf of bread.

If your crust is becoming soft too quickly and not staying crispy you simply need to bake the bread longer.

Applying the wrong amount of butter or oil

Too much butter and your garlic bread becomes a soggy, greasy mess, but too little, and you end up with brick-like pieces that are nearly unpalatable. It's safe to say that the amount of fat you use can make or break the dish.

Adding already-melted butter to your pieces of bread can often result in a soggy texture because the bread absorbs too much moisture before going into the oven, which makes it much harder to achieve that crunchy, toasted top layer on each piece.

Adjust the water amount slightly

As the loaf cools, any moisture which is left in the loaf escapes through the crust as steam and this is what causes the softening. You can help to prevent this from happening by reducing the water content of the loaf.