One of our local grocery stores has been selling fresh pumpernickel bread in the bakery section and we have recently fallen in love. It’s cheaper than the brand names, you get smaller slices, and it’s wonderfully soft. Our problem is that we don’t eat that much bread, so as wonderful as it is, we just can’t eat a whole loaf before it goes bad. Last night I decided to make croutons out of the remnants. They weren’t exactly stale, but here’s my basic recipe.
8 slices pumpernickel bread
1/4 cup olive oil
1 tsp garlic powder
1 tablespoon Italian seasoning
Preheat oven to 300 degrees. Mix olive oil, garlic powder, and Italian seasoning in a small bowl (next time I would probably let this sit to actually infuse the olive oil). Brush slices with oil mixture on both sides. Cut into chunks. Bake until crispy and dry, tossing every 7-8 minutes.
Random thoughts on cutting croutons: I got too much oil on the slices, so I partially cooked half the batch before cutting. It really is easier to baste the oil mixture on whole slices, but many recipes say to cut before seasoning. I forgot to cut the other half of the slices until they were cooked all the way through. They taste just fine, but if you are really committed to square croutons this is not the way to go.
