My Favorite Garlic Bread

A roasted garlic and butter mixture, spread on Italian bread topped with cheese.  This is irresistible.

Good garlic bread is surprisingly simple to make.  It takes only a few simple ingredients and is well worth the time and effort.  It took me a while to learn how to make good garlic bread.  The most important thing I learned is to use real garlic and butter.  When I was growing up, garlic bread to my family was always garlic powder sprinkled on buttered (actually margarined) slices of Italian bread and baked until crispy around the edges.  This was perfectly fine and easy, but once I learned to use roasted garlic and butter I have not gone back.

Ingredients:

Roasted Garlic
Butter, softened
Mozzarella cheese
Parmesan, optional

Mix the roasted garlic and butter well,  mashing the garlic cloves into small pieces (the amount of garlic and butter depends on personal preference and how much garlic bread you plan to make.  I used 2 heads, about 20 cloves, of garlic and 1 stick of butter to make 1 6-inch loaf and 1 12-inch loaf of garlic bread.)

Split the loaf in half lengthwise and spread each half with butter mixture.  Sprinkle on some Parmesan if using.

Put the two halves back together and wrap in aluminum foil.  Then bake at 350F for about 20 minutes (this allows the garlic and butter to seep into the bread while softening the inside and crisping the outside of the loaf).

Carefully remove the loaf from the oven and peel back the aluminum foil and open the loaf into two halves.  Sprinkle on a couple of hand fulls of mozzarella cheese.

Leaving the bread open, broil for about 10 minutes or until the cheese melts and the edges darken.

 Now slice and serve.  I stopped after the second step (spreading on the butter and parmasean, wrapping in aluminum foil) but froze the loaf instead of baking it for one of my loaves.  Now when I want garlic bread I can just pop the loaf, aluminum foil and all into the oven for about 30 minutes then proceed with the rest of the steps. I had my other loaf of garlic bread with some meatballs and marinara.  Enjoy.