Copycat Pizza Factory Breadsticks

Anyone who has ever been to Pizza Factory knows about their amazing twisty breadsticks. They're pretty much the main reason I'll go there. And since I was feeling lazy about dinner and decided to just bake a frozen pizza, I figured it'd be a good time to give these a try and make things feel a little more special.

I mixed up the dough in my stand mixer and it was super sticky. So I followed the advice on her blog and added a tablespoon of flour. Still sticky. Added another tablespoon. Still sticky. Figured maybe the dough would get less sticky after it had time to rise.

It did not. This dough is a pain and a half to work with, folks. It didn't matter how much I floured my hands and counter, this dough stuck to everything. I was almost ready to give up on this project because of how frustrated I was. But, I persevered for the sake of this blog and rolled the dough into snakes that were too long. :P

(You can see it sticking to my counter in the closest piece. I also halved the recipe since there's only two of us.)

I probably should have just called them good as is and not bothered to try to twist them onto skewers. But I didn't.

As you can see, they got quite thick at the bottom because of the extra length. This picture doesn't show it entirely (thank goodness) but trust me when I say they were not the beauties you receive at the restaurant.

After I let them rise again, they looked even worse. So I decided to abandon the hanging them idea and just lay the breadsticks in my pan and let them have a flat edge instead of being round on all sides.

Don't they look....like...something?

Coming out of the oven, they didn't look quite as bad, but still not what I had originally hoped for.

I don't have a cute little bucket or anything to put them in, so you'll have to settle for my hand (with acrylic nails that are currently a bit too long for my liking) holding one.

Now here's my dilemma. They're sooo good! I don't know if I'd say they're exactly like Pizza Factory's (I don't think theirs have rosemary) but they're really tasty. But the dough is SUCH a pain!! Sigh...I just don't know. If I was judging only on taste, it'd be an easy 4 stars. Husband really likes them too. But I do have to dock points because of how annoying this dough was to work with. So overall, I guess I'll say 3 stars.