I made bagels! They are quite simple, except that they take some time (lots of resting). Here is my afternoon adventure.
Ingredients:
- 4.5 cups all-purpose flour (separate into 1.5 cups and 3 cups)
- 3 tbs sugar
- 1.5 tsp salt
- 1 package active dry yeast (or 2.5 tsp)
- 1 2/3 cup warm water
- 2 tbs butter
- 1 tbs sugar
- 2 tsp salt
Start with one mixer.
Add 1.5 cups of all-purpose flour.
Add 3 tbs sugar, 1.5 tsp salt, and yeast.
At this point I would also add any extra flavorings you may want. I forgot to add it at this step and had to knead it through the dough later, which is more difficult. You could do some fresh herbs, Italian seasonings, jalapenos, cinnamon sugar, etc. Mix all the dry ingredients together.
Heat up the water with the butter and add that to the mixer. After it is well incorporated, slowly add the remaining flour (3 cups) until it forms a firm dough.
Knead the dough for about 10 minutes. It should be elastic.
Let rise in a covered bowl (just use the mixing bowl and plastic wrap) until it doubles in size.
Punch down the dough (this is my favorite part…the dough is poofy and quite fun to punch). Let it rest for 15 minutes.
Take your dough out, cut it in quarters.
As you work on each quarter, make sure the rest of the dough is covered in a bowl. You don’t want it to dry out. I initially made 4 bagels out of each quarter, but found them too big (they were the size of a regular bagel, but I prefer mini bagels). For the remaining 3 dough blobs, I divided them into 6 bagels each. Using your hands, roll the dough into small balls (make sure that it is smooth all around, you’ll see how crazy the bagels look if not smooth). Poke a hole in the center with your finger and widen it while smoothing the shape. Here are the 4 big bagels. Trust me, they will balloon up even more later on.
And here are my mini bagels.
You should have a large flat pan/skillet with about 1-2 inches of water boiling. Add the remaining sugar and salt to the water.
Once the water is simmering, drop in the bagels (either 4 or 6 at a time). Cook for 3 minutes, flip and cook for 2 minutes, flip and cook for 1 minute. So that’s 3-2-1. Pretty easy to remember.
LOOK AT HOW MUCH THEY EXPAND! Also, please note how the one on the left has a huge crater in it. That’s what a unsmoothed bagel ends up looking like. I don’t mind it because it tastes the same, but for presentation’s sake, you might want to spend more time on them when rolling them out.
Take out your bagels (use tongs or a slotted big spoon) and place them on a towel to cool down and dry. Handle them carefully because they are quite soft.
I would like to point out an issue I was having. For some reason bagels in same batch were having some mixed results. After boiling, I placed them out to dry and some of them deflated quite a bit. You can see the differences below. I’m not sure why this was happening, but I don’t mind. They just become more dense than the others and still taste the same. The deflated ones kind of look like bagel-raisins. Strange!
Once you’ve done this for all your bagels, place them on a greased cookie sheet and put them in a 375 degree oven for 20-30 minutes. I like to rotate the sheet so that they all get evenly browned. They should be cooked after about 25 minutes, but I usually leave them in longer until they get golden. I enjoy bagels with a tougher skin.
Put them on a cooling rack for as long as you can wait. I can’t wait very long, so I eat them hot, right out of the oven! Actually, writing this post has made me hungry for one, so I’m going to go nom on some. Toodles!
-Nam
