Garlic bread with roasted garlic
Golden, crisp and packed with rich flavour, this garlic bread with roasted garlic takes a classic favourite to the next level. Roasting the garlic mellows out its sharpness, bringing out a savoury sweetness; making the cloves golden, soft cloves that mix well with the butter. Crisp on the outside and soft in the centre, it’s the perfect side to pasta, soup or enjoyed on its own, this comforting garlic bread is simple to make yet impossible to resist.
Ingredients
Garlic bulbs, olive oil, loaf of bread, butter, parsley, salt, parmesan cheese
How much garlic bread does this make?
I usually have leftover compound butter – which is a fancy way of saying butter mixed with other ingredients – so it’ll depend on how large your bread is and how much you’ve got. For one typical loaf, you’ll have leftover compound butter so you may want to buy a second loaf or leave it for something else like adding it to pasta or your steak right before it’s finished cooking.
How should I prepare the garlic?
Many people will just slice the top of the bulb off, place it in an oven safe dish or in aluminium foil, cover it with some oil and a sprinkle of salt, bake it and squeeze the garlic out once it’s cooled down. I used to do it like that, however, I felt that I was wasting some of the garlic as some of it often didn’t come out. Now, I just take the time to remove the peel on the cloves and it gives me a chance to also remove the core.
Why do I remove the core of the garlic cloves?
All garlic cloves develop a core or germ, as the garlic ages, the core develops a more pronounced shape through the centre of the clove, until it springs green from the top of the clove. The size of the garlic core can determine whether or not it will impact food; the bigger the core/germ, the more impactful it can be on dishes. The germ can introduce sharp, bitter notes, which can interfere with the taste of your dish.
Why parmesan in addition to salt?
Parmesan is one of the foods that give an umami taste in food. Umami is one of the five basic tastes, alongside sweet, salty, sour, and bitter. Often described as savoury, rich, and deeply satisfying, it comes from naturally occurring compounds called glutamates. Foods such as aged cheeses, mushrooms, tomatoes, soy sauce, and slow-cooked meats are rich in umami, adding depth and complexity to dishes. It’s the taste that gives many foods their comforting, moreish quality and helps enhance overall flavour. MSG is a popular choice for adding umami to food as it has the purest, most concentrated way to add umami.
My Best Tips
This recipe may have leftover compound butter depending on the size or amount of bread you use. Put leftovers into a container, place into the fridge and it can be used for other dishes, like melting in a pan and stirred through pasta or right before you’re ready to serve for steak.
Add some cheese on top to make it a cheesy garlic bread, a good combo is mozzarella and tasty/cheddar cheese for that stretch and flavourful cheesy top.
Garlic bread with roasted garlic
Ingredients
- 2 bulbs of garlic or as much or as little as you want
- 1 loaf of bread vienna or another type of bread like a baguette
- 125 g butter
- 20 g parmesan cheese optional
- 1 teaspoon salt
- Olive Oil enough to fill the
- Parsley small handful of leaves removed from stem if fresh, or 1.5 tsps for dried
- 200 g cheese optional; mixture of mozzarella and tasty/cheddar for the stretchy and flavourful cheesy top
Instructions
- Remove the skin, base and core of each clove of garlic: by slicing off the base of the cloves with a small knife like a paring knife and peeling away the peel. You could also use the flat side of a knife to smash each clove, remove the peel and slice off the base. Slice down the middle of the clove with a small knife and remove the core. Note 1
- Place all the garlic in a small pot or small makeshift pot made out of aluminium foil, sprinkle with salt, cover in enough olive oil so that the garlic is covered and cover the pot.
- Put the pot of garlic in the oven and bake at 160 degrees celsius for 30 minutes or until the garlic is golden. Once cooked, remove from the oven and allow to cool. Note 2
- Place the butter, garlic – including the oil, parmesan, salt and parsley, in a food processor and blend everything together. Note 3
- Slice the loaf of bread in half, across the whole length of the loaf into two pieces. Spread the butter mixture evenly over the pieces of bread. Place onto a tray, add cheese if you want cheesy garlic bread, bake at 160 degrees celsius until the butter melts, the bread is crusty or until the cheese starts becoming golden, if you’re adding cheese. Remove from the oven and allow to cool.
- Once cooled, cut the garlic bread into slices and serve.
