A loaf of French bread, split lengthwise, spread with a garlic butter that has both parmesan and cheddar in it, and blasted under a broiler for a few minutes.

Eight minutes of prep and it comes out of the oven fast enough to make alongside almost anything.

Do not walk away from the broiler

I want this at the top rather than buried in the method, because it is the only way this recipe fails.

A broiler on high puts intense direct heat a few inches from the surface of your bread. Buttered, cheesy bread goes from pale to golden to black in well under a minute at the wrong moment. Two minutes is often enough. Five is usually too many.

Stand at the oven with the door cracked and watch it. Move the pan around partway through, because broiler elements heat unevenly and one end will colour faster than the other.

If you have never used your broiler before, expect the first loaf to teach you something.

Fresh garlic and garlic powder both

A tablespoon of minced fresh garlic, which is about three large cloves, plus half a teaspoon of garlic powder.

They are not redundant. Fresh garlic under high heat for a couple of minutes stays sharp and slightly raw-tasting, which is a large part of what garlic bread should taste like. Garlic powder is dehydrated and mellow and distributes evenly through the butter, so every bite carries a baseline of garlic even where a piece of fresh has not landed.

Using only fresh gives you patchy intensity. Using only powder gives you a flat one-note flavour with no bite.

Two cheeses doing different jobs

A quarter cup each of freshly grated parmesan and cheddar, stirred into the butter rather than scattered on top.

Parmesan is dry and salty and it browns hard under a broiler, giving colour and a savoury crust. Cheddar has more fat and moisture and it melts into stretchy pockets. Together you get browning and melt, which neither delivers alone.

Freshly grated for both. Pre-grated cheese carries anti-caking starch that leaves a slightly powdery texture and browns less evenly.

Mixing it into the butter, not layering

Butter, garlic, garlic powder, salt, pepper and parsley stirred together first. Then the cheeses stirred through that.

Everything goes on as one spread. Layering butter and then cheese means the cheese sits on the surface and browns while the butter underneath just melts and runs off the sides.

Salted butter is what the recipe calls for, softened rather than melted. Softened butter spreads into a layer that stays where you put it. Melted butter soaks straight into the bread and pools.

Split the loaf lengthwise

Cut evenly in half the long way and brush off any loose crumbs from the cut faces.

Crumbs are worth removing. They sit on the surface, absorb butter, and burn under a broiler well before the bread itself has browned, leaving dark specks.

Divide the butter mixture in half and spread it right out to the edges of each cut face. The edges are where the broiler hits hardest, and bare edges will scorch while the buttered middle is still coming along.

Foil-lined sheet

Worth doing purely for the cleanup. Butter and melted cheese run off the sides under a broiler and bake onto a bare pan.

Cutting and serving

Twenty four skinny pieces, twelve per side, which makes twelve servings of two pieces each.

Cutting after broiling rather than before is deliberate. Pre-cut bread separates under the heat and the exposed cut edges dry out. Broil it whole and slice it afterwards with a serrated knife.

Serve immediately. Garlic bread is at its best in the first five minutes and declines steadily after that as the butter cools and the crust softens.

Making the butter ahead

The garlic butter keeps a week refrigerated and freezes for a couple of months. Make a double batch and roll the spare into a log in cling film. Slice off what you need. It also works on steak, vegetables and baked potatoes.

If you have no broiler

A very hot oven, around 450F, on the top shelf for eight to ten minutes gets you close. You lose some of the direct top browning, so finish with a minute under the grill element if your oven has one.