Ron,
I thought someone would have jumped in sooner with a perfect garlic knot recipe for you to try out.
Basically, I think the answer to your request is that just about any bread dough product will work. But since this is a pizza making forum, it might be helpful to you to know what pizza operators do. As you know, pizza operators love bread sticks, garlic knots and garlic bread. And the reason they are so fond of them is that they are high profit margin items, better than pizza itself. And the best part is that pizza operators can use their existing pizza dough to make them. Any unused pizza dough can also be used to make these items rather than just throwing the dough away or mixing it in with a new batch of dough.
As an example, to make a garlic knot you can take an ounce of dough and form it into a rope about 6 inches long. Or you can use 2 ounces to make a rope about 8 inches long. To prepare the garlic knots, all that is necessary is to tie knots in the ropes, place them on a dark anodized baking sheet, let them rise until they are about double in size, and bake until browned. I would guess that about 425 degrees F should work for a home oven. Some pizza operators brush the unbaked knots with garlic butter, herbs, grated cheese, etc., before baking, but some do it after baking. The garlic butter can comprise melted margarine, melted butter, or a combination, and granulated garlic. The finished garlic knots are often served with garlic butter, a marinara sauce or a Hidden Valley type of sauce (preferably the kind made from the dry, packaged mix). Of course, in a home setting you can use fresher and better toppings and seasonings (including fresh garlic) than pizza operators use. (Pizza operators are subject to many regulations of a hygiene nature and they want to keep their food costs down.)
The same pizza dough can also be used to make garlic bread sticks. For example, an 18-ounce piece of dough can be shaped and rolled or punched down into an 8" x 11" rectangle and cut into 8 strips about 8 inches long and about an inch wide. After letting them rise, they are baked and seasoned in essentially the same manner as described above.
If you prefer, you can improve upon a pizza dough to make softer garlic knots and bread sticks. For example, you can increase the amount of fat to about 8-12% of the weight of flour, and increase the amount of sugar to about 4% of the weight of flour. Using butter as the fat can also improve the flavor of the finished product. Increasing the amount of water in the pizza dough recipe can also lighten the finished product. Most pizza operators don't do these things, of course, since it means having to make a separate dough formulation. You are not so constrained in a home setting.
Peter
