I have never been a huge fan of bagels. Well…not the store bought kind. They seem so fake to me for some reason.
I have made bagels several times and for some reason, it’s the pumpkin ones that I made 5 or so years ago that stand out in my mind. Weird, right?!
Today I woke up thinking I really wanted to make bagels. And I think it was the cream cheese I was craving more than the bagel. So, I got up. Made the hubby’s lunch and sent him off to work. Helped Sis get ready and took her to school. Came home and got dressed and ready for the day.
With yesterday being my birthday, I played lazy after dinner and didn’t do the dishes so I had to clean the kitchen before making another mess. So I did.
Now I am no professional bagel-baker. But I am certainly up for more practice and hope to be able to try many more bagel recipes in the near future.
I mentioned in a previous post that I don’t keep bread flour around. Well, most all bagel recipes call for bread flour. In order to achieve the correct texture and feel of a bagel you need to have a high gluten flour.
Because I bake a bunch of wheat bread around here, I always have Vital Wheat Gluten in my cupboard. So I added that to my all-purpose flour to give it the extra gluten necessary for a yummy bagel. I added 1 Tbsp of Vital Wheat Gluten to the 3 1/2 cups flour and it seemed to work well and give them a nice texture.
I love watching yeast work. It’s like magic.
You want to make sure you knead this dough until it’s smooth. This takes approximately 10 minutes. It really helps if you have an electric mixer, but if you don’t…enjoy the workout!
The shaping process takes practice and I still need more practice. The dough is nice to work with.
This water was boiling a bit more rapid at first than I intended it to, so I turned it down abit. It’s a bit weird to put raw dough into boiling water, but what a cool process! I boiled them for 1 1/2 minutes on each side. I used the handle of a wooden spoon to turn them and remove them from the water.
I placed them on a baking mat to bake them. 
Bake in preheated 425 degree oven for 20-25 minutes. 25 minutes made these a perfect golden brown.
After cooling completely, I could not wait to cut into one of these babies!
So I did…
I made some Veggie Cream Cheese spread and slathered it on the yummy bagel, along with a couple slices of shaved turkey. Oh my gosh… Heaven!
New York Style Bagels
Ingredients:
- 2 teaspoons active dry yeast
- 1 1/2 Tbsp sugar
- 1 1/4 cups warm water
- 3 1/2 cups bread flour, high gluten flour, or add 1 Tbsp Vital Wheat Gluten to all purpose flour
- 1 1/2 tsp salt
Directions:
- Pour warm water, yeast and sugar into the bowl of a stand mixer and let sit for 5 minutes.
- Add in flour and salt. You are making a firm dough that’s not at all sticky. Knead the dough using the dough hook for 10 minutes on low speed. When it’s finished, the dough shouldn’t stick to the bowl and should be smooth. If you need to add flour or water during the kneading process, do so. These amounts worked perfect for me.
- Remove the dough hook and cover the bowl for 1 hour to rise.
- Preheat oven to 425 degrees and put a large pot of water on to boil. You’ll need about 5 inches of water.
- Punch down dough and let it rest for 10 minutes.
- Divide the dough in half and then each half into fourths. You’ll have 8 dough balls.
- On a lightly floured countertop roll each dough into a tight ball. Check this video tutorial for help, if necessary.
- With a floured thumb, jab a hole into the middle of each ball and stretch the dough until the hole is about twice the width of the thickness of the bagel, about 1 1/2 inches in diameter. Shape all bagels and then add as many as will fit comfortably into your pot of gently boiling water. I just did 2 at a time. Boil bagels for 1-2 minutes on each side. The longer the boil, the chewier the bagel. Use the handle of a wooden spoon to flip the bagels in the water.
- Remove bagels and place on a greased or silicon-lined baking sheet. Bake for 20-25 minutes, or until golden. Cool completely before slicing, toasting and gobbling up!
recipe adapted from Jellibean Journals
Lots of love,
Teauna
Because I Can 