I wish you were in my kitchen when these breadsticks came out of the oven last week. I could have cried tears of joy!!!
These are not just some ordinary breadsticks to me. As most of Croatians, I grew up eating Slanci – salty breadsticks. As I said on my Instagram post, these Slanci were my lunch for most of my high school years and an easy snack whenever I needed one. Every single bakery in Croatia has their own version and guys, we have A LOT of bakeries in Croatia. Like ‘on every single corner’ a lot of bakeries. And usually everyone has their favorite bakery, sometimes you have a few for different baked goods. I can think of at least five right this second and each one has something they are best at. To not keep talking about Croatian bakeries for the rest of this post, just trust me, they are amazing and these salty breadsticks are ridiculously good!
So how did I get to these breadsticks, that I haven’t had in over ten years?!? My friend Andreja posted a picture of the ones she made on Facebook and she gave me the link to the recipe. I went and made them right away and the rest is history. They are so tasty and soft inside, slightly crunchy on the outside while still warm, and please make sure you eat some while they are sill warm, they are heaven! I don’t think I was ever asked by as many people for the recipe once they saw them so I decided to translate them for everyone that doesn’t speak Croatian. These are so incredibly simple to make, there is literally not one change I’d make on them (other then putting just a tad bit more salt in the slurry because we are crazy like that) so if you are one of my Croatian readers, please hop to Sašina Kuhinja for the original recipe! If you do not speak Croatian, hop on down for the translated recipe, but I still recommend following the link and seeing Saša’s YouTube video on how he prepares them!
Slanci – Croatian Breadsticks
For the Dough:
650g all purpose flour
10g instant yeast
10g salt
5g sugar
300ml warm milk
80ml oil
100ml plain yogurt
1 Tbsp of apple cider vinegar
little bit of canola oil for brushing
For the salty slurry*:
30g all purpose flour
5-6 Tbsp water
15g salt
1/2 tsp of baking soda
*I doubled it because I didn’t put any cheese on half of the breadsticks like Saša did in his video and I upped the salt just a touch because we really love salt!
Add salt, sugar and the yeast into your flour. In another bowl mix the milk, oil, yogurt and vinegar. Mix the wet ingredients into the flour and quickly knead it into a ball adding as little extra flour as possible, This dough is supposed to be sticky.
Put the dough into a floured bowl and let rise in a warm spot for about an hour.
After an hour the dough should be doubled in size. Knead it one more time then divide into 10-12 balls (I make 12).
Roll each ball into about 12″ logs and put each one on a parchment paper about an inch apart. Brush each breadstick with a little bit of oil and then right before they go into an oven spray them with a little bit of water.
Bake at 485F for 10 minutes. While the breadsticks are in the oven prepare the salty slurry. Mix the flour, salt, water and baking soda and once the breadsticks are out of the oven, generously spoon the slurry across all of them. Put them back into the oven for 2 minutes to finish baking and they are done.
I really hope you like them as much as we do!