Pillsbury Italian Breadsticks Review

Overall 4.00 of 5 view all 5 reviews

gamera23
Chicago, IL

Just like those - whaddaya call 'em? - chefs make

thrifty, hungry

Pros

Ready fast, Freezer convenience

Cons

Mushy dough, messy, poor packaging

APR

2007

Pillsbury Italian Breadsticks —

Looking forward to throwing together a nice pasta & turkey meatball dinner during the week, we decided to that rather than our usual biscuits we’d try out Pillsbury’s Italian Breadsticks – you know, just like in the best Italian restaurants. The handy little box comes complete with dough, and (in this case) Parmesan spread. We got the Parmesan with garlic flavor, but they also come in Garlic & Herb, and maybe other flavors. Hey, we weren’t paying that close attention. If we wanted to put that much effort into it, we would have made them from scratch.

The dough is standard issue for Pillsbury, a cylinder of dough in a cardboard tube with aluminum ends. The instructions say to peel off the outer paper (starting “here”) to expose the seam winding around the tube, at which point the tube should pop open (opah!), freeing the dough. Hmmm. But what if you follow directions and the thing doesn’t pop open? Recalling how Pillsbury used to have consumers slapping the tubes against counters to open them (until, no doubt, a series of personal injury lawsuits closed off that option), I cautiously banged the package on the counter. She no open. After applying scissors, knives, and other implements, I finally got the darn thing to split open.

We’re not the only ones who have trouble with the Pillsbury Doughboy not wanting to come out and play. The packaging used to pop open with an alarming bang if you held it wrong, but now it takes endless peeling and chiseling before they open, and then you might need to get the dough loose without mashing it, or else the dough explodes in all directions.

Next instruction: roll out dough. Unfortunately, the dough is too mushy by this time to easily unroll. We end up cutting into it to get it started enough to peel open. After putting it on a cookie sheet and applying the garlic/parmesan spread, we dumped a bunch of extra grated cheese on top. After all, we are true and original kitchen geniuses. 10 to 14 minutes later, the bread was cooked and the cheese melted. Yum! The only problem we had then is that the dough is slit so that the breadsticks can be easily pulled apart after baking, but our layer of cheese isn’t.

No matter for us – we just pulled off random hunks to eat – but you may want to think twice before serving this at your next fancy dinner party.