The last time I did this, I used leftover bread pieces from a fondue party I attended. You could also use the heels from your bread if you don't eat them, Hubby does eat them, the weirdo ;)
This time, I had no leftover bread, so I bought a loaf of sourdough & a loaf of pumpernickel. You can use whatever bread strikes your fancy :) I prefer bold flavored loaves to give my breadcrumbs flavor. However, if you wanted to use white bread & season it, that would also work! A little olive oil and a sprinkling of garlic, or some italian herbs, before putting in the oven would do the trick.
Tear up your bread into large-ish chunks & spread onto baking sheets (or if you are me, your only baking sheet & a roaster pan).
In to the oven they go at 300 F for 10 minutes. Then give them a little stir & back in for 5 minutes. Continue this in 5 minute intervals until they do not give with a gentle squeeze. For me the sourdough took a lot longer to firm up than the pumpernickel.
Then I proceeded to attempt to crumble up the pieces into breadcrumbs by hand... that was a bad idea! My thumbs were very sore after a little while!! However, you can see here the size I like my breadcrumbs :)
Then I decided to ziplock baggy them & hammer at them with a spoon... the ziplock bag could not hold up to this kind of abuse!
At this point, my thumbs really hurt from tearing at almost rock hard bread & there wasn't a lot of bread pieces left. I just started hammering away with the spoon in the roaster pan! Not all the breadcrumbs stayed in the pan ;) but it was a great stress reliever! I would recommend doing this in a food processor & just processing to your desired consistency :) You live & learn!
Those 2 loaves of bread made 2 gallon size freezer bags of breadcrumbs :) These can be kept in the freezer & used anytime you need breadcrumbs! I will be using some tomorrow to top my mac & cheese! Are you making a Thanksgiving dish that requires breadcrumbs?
